You know directorKoji Shiraishi, even if you think you dont.
Hes directedJ-horrorclassics like the acclaimedNoroi: The Curseand the campier classic,Sadako vs Kayako.
Theurban legendfocuses on a woman and her relationship to vanity.
Image via Tartan Films
Kuchisake-onna is, at first, by all appearances, a normal woman.
She approaches her victims wearing a small surgical mask.
She asks her victims if she is beautiful.
Image via Tartan Films
She pulls out a large pair of scissors anddisfigures and kills the unfortunate personwho crosses her path.
Though some versions of the urban legend claim you might get away if you tell her shes average.
Shiraishi takes this story at more than face value.
Image via Tartan Films
Hemelds it with an undercurrent of seriouschildhood fears and anxieties.
Shiraishi takes her cry of, Am I pretty?
and with it, paints a sordid history of abusive parenting.
Image via Tartan Films
At times, theyre even the abuser.
And unluckily for them shes punctual.
An excuse to only drink soda and coffee for the rest of your life.
The film doesnt leave this to inference.
Its an obvious yet eerie parallel to theurban legend floating aroundMikas school.
She offers to stay with Mika a bit longer and walk her home.
Kyoko snaps at Mika for saying she doesnt think her mother loves her, that she hates her mother.
Mika runs, reasonably wary of another adult in her life becoming aggressive with her.
After Kyoko speaks with the police, she goes home and makes a phone call.
The reason for her outburst towards Mika is revealed.
Her ex-husband has sole custody of her young daughter because Kyoko herself is a physically abusive parent.
The titular slit-mouthed woman tosses the children she kidnaps haphazardly into an abandoned basement.
But theyre also beaten, stabbed, and more.
Where Kyoko must face her failings as a parent, Noboru must face his childhood.
Through flashbacks, its revealed that Noboru was severely abused as a child for years before anyone intervened.
In unsettling vignettes, Shiraishi gets his closest to what is most identifiably J-horror.
With eerie combinations of somewhat-dated CGI and practical effects, the filmserves up more uncanny valley terror with age.
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