As Legend Would Have It, I Killed But Am Innocent Still! The Kaidan Review

There is a point to the title of this entry, and you will soon see why. As some of you know, it isn't hard for anything to piss me off into a "rant rage," especially when it comes to movies. But, for a long time, Japanese Horror has failed to do this. Ju-On, Shikoku, Parasite Eve, Audition, Ju-Rei, and the underrated Tomie (oh, Miho Kanno... you can kiss other Japanese women in any movie) were all really good horror movies, without straying into slasher territory. So, with this knowledge of experience, I went into Kaidan thinking that it would be the same deal. Oh, Kurasawa Akira, why have you forsaken me?

The movie starts with a narrator who seems to think he's Mako telling us about a business man who loaned a samurai 20 yen, and charged a buttload of interest. The samurai argues with him, and eventually a fight ensues. The samurai cuts above the man's eye, and when the man defends himself with a sickle, the samurai cuts his hand off (I think, its never clear what happens) and does a Deadly Little Miho on him. The narrator then announces that the samurai was cursed, went insane, and killed his family. Apparently, he wasn't insane before. You know, when HE BROKE HIS CODE AND KILLED HIS BOOKIE! Or, when he started borrowing money to gamble in the first place.

Well, the samurai's son, Shinkichi, sells tobacco, and falls in love with Osaiga, the businessman's oldest daughter. Of course, they know nothing of their parents, no less. Anyway, as winter comes, Shinkichi, who looks more like a woman than Osaiga, confesses his love to her, but she declines because she likes older, bigger men. Then, out of lonesomeness, decides to have sex with him anyway (or at least have him nibble her ear). I'd make a comment about her being insane, but I have a few reasons why I can't. I'll just say this: MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

Winter passes, and Shinkichi is living with Osaiga and her sister, and flirting with Osaiga's student. Osaiga doesn't like this (especially since all of her other students' mothers dubbed her as a whore, and refuse to have her teach their daughters), and banishes the student, and her sister for standing up for the student. This leads Shinkichi to try to leave so Osaiga can teach again, but Osaiga grabs him and screams "NO!" until Shinkichi grabs a shamasin pick, and accidently cuts above her eye. You can see the predictability now, right? Well, the cut gets infected and she grow steadily more insane, to the point of wanting Shinkichi to nibble her ears out of fear that they're going to fall off. Yes, you read that right, she wants her ears chewed on because they're going to fall of... Wait, what's with him and ears, anyway?

Well, Shinkichi runs into the banned student while getting Osaiga's medicine, and watches the fireworks with her, and even eventually agreeing to leave town with her. While packing, Shinkichi's uncle tells him Osaiga wants to see him. She tells him to go leave town, and she herself leaves, as someone tells Shinkichi that Osaiga died. Yes... you read that right too. He rushes back to find Osaiga's sister cleaning her, and she hands him this note: "If you marry another woman, I'll kill her." Osaiga was such a great catch. Its worth mentioning that Osaiga was married herself, and that her husband died in battle... only after she slept with Shinkichi.

Student and Shinkichi run away, but the student thinks Osaiga is following them. Sure enough, Osaiga's ghost is clearly visible through the one inch gaps between the planks of the bridge above them, causing the girl to run and trip. Shinkichi goes to help her, but he sees her as Osaiga, finds a sickle, and impales her neck with it as she tries to strangle him the whole time. He runs, but passes out, only to be found by the girls uncle. Death by Shinkichi: 2 Death by ghost: 0.

Uncle offers Shinkichi his daughter's hand in marriage, but Shinkichi declines. While explaining to Orui (Osaiga, Orui, Oskai the student... ears and "O's"... what weird fetishes this guy has), that he doesn't love her, she falls into a fire pit, her arm landing in it and face landing well outside, and yet still burns ABOVE HER FREAKING EYE. Shinkichi takes this as an omen (smart)... to marry her. What. The. FUCK?!?!?!?!?!?!1/ It's a sign that if he marries her, she'll die, so he marries her? Who wrote this shit? Oh, but it gets worse. She gives birth to a baby girl who has a birthmark of *sigh*, you guessed it, a scratch above her eye.

Shinkichi goes to a bar and talks to Osaiga's sister and tells her that her sister died. Wait... she all ready knew because she was there to clean Osaiga's body, but she's just now finding out? To make matters worse, he tells her that he loved Osaiga from the bottom of his heart, even though she knows he didn't. While there (before my head explodes), a fat guy shows Shinkichi a geisha that his father in law uses as a mistress. I'd bitch about this, but figuring that the movie seems to know as much about Japanese culture as Dan Brown knows about Christianity, the point is moot. Shinkichi falls asleep, but the geisha wakes him up so he can go home.

Back home, Orui says that its weird that the baby doesn't cry. Shinkichi agrees, and exposes bruises on the baby's legs from were he tortured her. He suggests that they beat her to make her cry, and Orui is appalled. He then puts his hand over the baby's eyes, yes EYES, and the father-in-law threatens him. Shinkichi runs to the bar, where the fat guy leads him to the Lake of the Dead, and geisha shows him the sickle he used to kill Oskai. They say they'll give him the sickle for 100 yen, and after two threats, he decides to rob his father in law to pay them off. While doing so, the father in law follows him, and thinks that Shinkichi is using the geisha as a mistress, and fights him. The geisha kills the father in law, and sends Shinkichi home. And yet, the ghost still hasn't done a damn thing.

At home, Shinkichi finds his daughter dead, and hallucinates that Oskai is fighting him in the Lake of the Dead. He strangles her, but realizes too late that he's strangling Orui, and she dies. He again runs away, but not far as the village starts to follow with torches and pitchforks. Shinkichi must be Japanese for Frankenstein. He gets cornered by the villagers, finds the sickle, and proceeds to kill everyone from the town, only getting stabbed once and cut twice. After he's killed everyone (and still the ghost has done NOTHING), Osaiga's sister arrives and says, "Hurry, they're coming." Who is?! He killed the whole town, obviously. I'd believe it if she said, "Oh shit, let's go before another village tries to kill you," but she makes it seem like the village is just going to respawn.

She takes Shinkichi on a boat, but while on the Lake of the Dead, Osaiga's arms pull Shinkichi under. The movie ends with Osaiga's ghost finally killing someone, and kissing Shinkichi's disembodied head. This movie sucked so hard, that it could get a job out doing pornstars in a golfball in a hose contest. The writing was horrible, the scenes were inconsistent, and half the time someone was where they shouldn't have been, or couldn't remember that they were in a scene. Not to mention that the main character is a maniac who beats a newborn. I'm the Window Keeper signing off before I'm pulled under water by my ex. Sorry, held out as long as a could... but which one?

Why I Do What I Do and What's To Come

Some of you have asked me why my main comic idea is morbid and gory when I could do so much more. Muzzle hasn't been my best effort at the comedy style (when it comes back, it'll be better, trust me), but it had potential. But my true comic "love," if you could call it that, is Goria, a truly disgusting, frightening, and disturbing tale that revolves around death (quite often), violence, and anything else negative. But, why do I focus on the negative in this comic?

First of all, when have comics shown a complete positive on anything? Take Spider-Man (way before selling his soul), for example. Several issues had dealt with drug abuse, and even murder (Gwen Stacy). Batman is another example. People used to love the golden age Batman, but think of why he is Batman. His parents were murdered in front of him when he was eight. No way is he going to be as "well adjust" as he acts in the golden age comics. In fact, he would be either scarred for life, or incredibly bitter. Other comics have taken the route of going dark earlier, i.e. Alan Moore's run on Miracleman, in which Kid Miracleman is raped, and, in vengeance, destroys London in an excessively grotesque manner. Alan Moore himself is a good example of dark comics done really well, especially the well known classic, Watchmen, which was a fantastic read, even if the end is a little out dated.

My interest in horror, though, peaked when I was young. I used to watch Nightmare on Elm Street, and Video Dead every Halloween. They scared me, but the creative aspect of monsters intrigued me. As I grew old, I found the ruthless killer kind of monotonous, and grew tired of it. I wanted to be scared by a monster with a brain, with sentient thought. At the same time, I was getting steadily more depressed, and I wanted my emotional, and mental, pain to stop. Around the sixth grade, I drew a picture of a man sitting on a crag, with his skin turning into tendrils. My older brother saw it, and said "Ew. That's gory." That moment, I came up with a name for him: Goria. The character... not my brother.

I formulated his back story, and tried to make it funny, but as the years went by, it was pointed out that it was more scary than anything else. Discouraged, I decided to change the tone and make the comic scary. Instead of the main character, a monster that he maybe, being a ruthless killer superhero, a la Spawn, I made Goria, a.k.a Nathaniel Andrews, emotional. Driven. Human. He had a heart, but wasn't infallible. He was like a normal person, but with his disturbing powers. The enemies were given quirks: HodgePodge suffered every mental disorder known to man at different times, and knew it, but refused to treat himself. Samael was cast out of Hell on to Earth for defying the devil by saying Hell wasn't "cruel enough." Succubus possesses a girl who loves Nathaniel, and battle of duality sets in. Sodom and Gomorrah are two women in love with each other, but conflicted in two ways. Sodom wants to use Gomorrah, but loves her anyway, and Gomorrah doesn't want to kill, but does so for Sodom. TRAC is more intelligent than anything on earth, but his monstrous appearance scares people to the point where he's a nihilist.

Even the supporting characters had quirks that made them more real. Sin watched Samael brutalize her parents. Zeta is Samael's sister. Jillian Dyer, the Provider, is rescued from being one of Belial's sex slave porn stars, only to get possessed by Succubus (her third incarnation). Angeldust, one of the Barnum Ring's Circus gang members, wants to be human to repent for her sins, and Heroin wants to be human so she can be human again. The heroes have their heartwrenching moments, but so do the villains.

Why did I do this, though? It's gory, violent, and horrific, yes. But look beyond the dark, blood red exterior, and look at the storylines themselves. Monster's aren't the physical appearance, but what's inside the person. As sickening as the hero is, he tries to save countless lives, and ultimately feels compassion, even if its not shown to him. Is he still a monster?

Another point in Goria, beyond the psychology and philosophy of it, is Religion. As odd as it sounds, Religion plays a huge part in it. And I don't mean that because the main villains are demons. I mean that in the way that characters act, and their purposes. Goria wants good to prevail, and ultimately tries to save the world from premature Apocalypses three times, despite the fact that its not his destiny. He doesn't do this because he's a messiah, he does this so, as he puts it in World War, "God can end this on his terms." At several points, Goria even prays for guidance and thanks. Does this mean its a religious comic? No. But, as a subject within it, Religion is one of the biggest.

So while it is frightening and gory, oddly enough, for me its cathartic. Goria is by unusual means, a hero, because of what he does in the comic, but also in a sense that he is a way for me to explore concepts that are hard to explore in real life, such as death, crime, violence, and psychology. But the brightness shines through it, too. Through out the death and blood, a ray of hope shines through. Whether its God, or just a man standing up for what he believes in (in the comic, that is), I don't know yet, because the story is far from being over, but ever closer to beginning.

On a last note, I'm doing some concept work and promos for Goria. Right now, I'm drawing a poster of Erica DuPont, Goria's "Gwen Stacy," if you will, and designing the villain REM. Stay tuned.