Hereditary’s
Ari
Aster cannot hold a candle to Tetsuya Nakashima when it comes to portraying
extreme human emotions. Technically, this is his first outright horror movie,
but aesthetically, it is not so far distant from films like Confessions and
Memories of Matsuko. The only thing more intense then the family
dysfunction in his latest work is the supernatural horror looming over
Nakashima’s It Comes, which had its Canadian premiere at the 2019 Fantasia International Film Festival.
Newlyweds
Hideki and Kana Tahara look like a picture-book couple, but there was a strange
incident from his childhood that continues to haunt his dreams and subconscious.
There is a sinister force out there that still “calls out” to him. The birth of
his daughter Chisa was a happy event for the couple and their friends, but it
might provide an opening for the ominous supernatural power to get its hooks
into the nuclear family.
When
wild things start happening around him, Tahara reaches out to Kazuhiro Nozaki,
an expert on the occult, and his girlfriend, Makoto Higa, a self-taught
psychic. However, the uncanny entity is too powerful for her to handle. Much to
her chagrin, the Tahara family will need the help of Higa’s arrogant older
sister Kotoko, a professional exorcist highly trained in the shamanistic arts. Then
you-know-what happens—a lot of it.
It
Comes is
a heck of a wild ride. It starts on a micro level, but Nakashima quickly takes
it macro, staging bigger and more-over-the-top horror movie exorcisms than you
have ever seen before. There are also multiple shocking surprises in store for
viewers. In fact, we start out assuming it is about one set of characters, but
it really turns out to be about an entirely different group of folks. It
Comes morphs into a very different film than what you expect, but that
makes it genuinely surprising, almost (but not quite) like seeing Hitchcock’s Psycho
again for the first time.
Takako
Matsu, who rocked Nakashima’s Confessions, commands the screen as Kotoko
Higa, portraying a psychic exorcist distinctive enough to rival Lin Shaye in
the Insidious franchise. Jun’ichi Okada really sells the film’s extreme
madness, convincingly playing Nozaki as the character is dragged sideways through
the proverbial wringer. Nana Komatsu and Haru Kuroki, as Makoto and Kana,
respectively, also convincingly shift gears multiple times over, completely
keeping viewers off balance.
This
is a scary film and an insane spectacle. It is also Nakashima’s best film since
Confessions, representing a rebound after the comparatively
disappointing World of Kanako. Enthusiastically recommended for fans of
films like Hereditary, Insidious, and The Conjuring, It Comes premiered
in Canada during this year’s Fantasia.
