Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

Severe Injuries

‘Alone in a Haunted House’ (2004, Sub Rosa)

Directed by Joshua P. Warren 

I’ll be upfront.  I’m not a believer in ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, psychics, angels, demons, or any other supernatural phenomena.  I’m not arrogant enough to say these things absolutely don’t exist, but I’ve yet to see any decent evidence for any of these claims.  In his short (about a half hour) video ‘Alone in a Haunted House’, author Joshua P. Warren purports to provide that evidence, and for those who haven’t wasted as much time as I have reading books and watching programs on ghosts (from both skeptical and true believer points of view), it just might be convincing.   

Warren spends the night in a supposedly haunted house, alone except for his video camera and ghost hunting gear.  Among his arsenal of tools:  EMF meters, tape recorders, a digital camera, strobe lights, and an infrared scanner.  I’ve yet to see any ghost hunter explain in even a semi scientific manner how any of these items function in the service of detecting ghosts.  Take the digital camera, for instance.  If one is in a haunted location and snaps a picture that contains an “orb” (usually a small white circle in the photo), then that orb is a ghost.  Of course, having taking countless digital pictures myself, I’m well aware that dust, rain and insects can create exactly the same results.  That’s why even many true believers in ghosts don’t pay much attention to orbs.  I’m not going to go through the rest of Mr. Warren’s evidence, but suffice it to say I wasn’t impressed. 

I wasn’t much impressed with this video on its own terms, either.  It’s short, lacking in background information about the “haunted house”, and quite frankly rather dull.  I’m sure there are believers out there who would like this a lot more than I did just because it shows in some detail the methodology used in a ghost hunt.  As for me, I’d much rather watch one of the ghost related shows on Discovery Channel.  Those shows at least are shot and edited in a compelling way, contain decent background information, and often include a skeptic like Joe Nickell who can point out the less fantastic explanations for the paranormal claims.   

For some reason, Sub Rosa’s documentaries that I’ve seen to date are extremely skimpy on the bonus features compared to their fiction films.  Considering that this “feature” was culled from an entire night’s worth of filming, you’d think a deleted scene or two could have been included.  It’s hard to justify buying a DVD with this little content.  (Bob Ignizio)

‘Gozu’ (2003, Pathfinder Home Entertainment)

Directed by Takashi Miike 

This is a story of repressed homosexual desire disguised as a Yakuza movie filtered through the sensibilities of David Lynch.  Minami (Hideki Sone) is a low level Yakuza who is indebted to Ozaki (Sho Aikawa) for saving his life.  When the boss of the crime family tells Minami he must take the increasingly erratic Ozaki out to a dump site and kill him, he is understandably conflicted.  Still, he sets out to do as he’s told.  On the way to their destination, Ozaki gets so out of control that Minami has to knock him unconscious.  Arriving in a small town, Minami goes into a restaurant.  When he goes back to his car, Ozaki is gone.  As Minami searches for Ozaki, things get increasingly bizarre, and it becomes increasingly obvious that Minami may not be able to kill his friend. 

Okay, sounds pretty straight forward.  But toss in a crime boss who can only have sex with a soup ladle inserted in his posterior, an incestuous brother/sister couple who run the only hotel in town which also serves as a bottling facility for the sister’s breast milk, a man with a cow’s head, and the astounding transformation of one of the main characters.  Now we’ve got a Takashi Miike film.  Like all his movies, it defies easy genre classification.  It’s got drama, suspense, comedy, horror, and just plain weirdness.   

The movie is admittedly a bit tough to understand, as so much of it is rooted in Japanese culture.  Thankfully, however, the DVD includes an essay which explains a lot of things that at first seem just weird for weird’s sake.  The movie is also kind of slow moving and meandering, but I found that to be part of its charm.  As Miike himself says in an interview on the disc, he wanted to include characters and scenes that had nothing to do with moving the story forward.  They just provide atmosphere and color, further enhancing the feeling that we’re in another world.   

While ‘Gozu’ is nowhere near as extreme as Miike films like ‘Dead or Alive’ and ‘Ichi the Killer’, it definitely has its moments:  a Chihuahua is brutally killed before the credits even roll (not just for shock value, as the essay explains the meaning behind this), the aforementioned soup ladle sex, and a very unusual birth scene will certainly test the endurance of many viewers.  However, this is not an exploitation film.  It is a film of substance, style, and depth.  If you think you can handle it, check it out.  (Bob Ignizio)