Cops
and serial killers have trouble retiring. At least, Det. Koichi Takakura gives
it a try. However, the freshly appointed criminology professor is soon
investigating an unsolved family disappearance as part of his academic
research. Of course, this case will hit close to home, as they often do in
serial killer movies. So it goes when Kiyoshi Kurosawa returns to his macabre
roots with Creepy (trailer here), which screens
during the 2016 New York Asian Film Festival.
The
Honda family disappearance is still somewhat notorious in this sleepy suburban
district. For some reason, the mother, father and son up and vanished, leaving
behind the daughter Saki while she was away on a class trip. Her memories of
that time are rather confused when Takakura interviews her, but she seems to
think her missing family members often made calls to a shadowy stranger.
Meanwhile,
the Takakuras struggle to adapt to suburban life. The next door neighbor
Nishino is particularly baffling. One day he is rude and hostile. The next day
he is eager to make nice. Takakura is inclined to give him a wide berth,
particularly when his daughter Mio claims he is not really her father, but he
somehow seems to make inroads charming his wife Yasuko. Eventually, these two
strands will intersect, because the narrative would be an ungainly mess if they
didn’t.
Even
though we can see the general direction Creepy
is headed, the first two acts are eerie as heck. Nobody does ominous
atmospherics and evil foreshadowing better than Kurosawa. Unfortunately, the
final twenty minutes or so play out more-or-less by-the-numbers. Still, even
though Kurosawa stops springing surprises, he has us sufficiently invested to
see it through.
Hidetoshi
Nishijima (who memorably got the snot beat out of him in Amir Naderi’s Cut) broods like a king as the possibly
too-intense Takakura. Yet, somehow Teruyuki Kagawa manages to consistently
up-stage him and everyone else as Nishino, who lives up to Kurosawa’s title and
then some. Ryoko Fujino manages to be almost as unsettling, yet also
disturbingly vulnerable as Mio. Max the Takakuras’ dog is cool too—and he has a
significant, but not corny role to play.
