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31 DAYS OF HORROR – “Haze”

The waning sunlight of October is upon us; All Hallows’ Eve is nigh. And so, with the chilly, sober onset

of autumn, Cinespect is reflecting on all the nastiest, campiest, shit-your-pants scariest horror flicks

from the near and distant past that we think are worthy of a rewatch.

So as you await the premieres of the teen slasher flick “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane” (10/11), the

theme-park creepfest “Escape from Tomorrow” (10/11), and the talent-packed “Carrie” remake

(10/18), scare yourself stupid with Cinespect’s countdown to Halloween: 31 DAYS OF HORROR.

Yesterday, Paul Anthony Johnson made a house call on 1943′s “The Mysterious Doctor”; today, Daniel

Johnson leads us back into Shinya Tsukamoto’s claustrophobic “Haze.”

***

In 2005, Shinya Tsukamoto, director of the cult hit “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (1989), among other weird

wonders, shot his first digital video feature as part of the Jeonju International Film Festival’s Digital

Project: “Haze,” a grueling and gruesome 50-minute nightmare.

An initial 25-minute incarnation of “Haze” premiered at JIFF, sandwiched between two other DV shorts,

including one from the meditative Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Following Weerasethakul’s lyrical little

film about a spiritual tree with the brutal, perverse mania of “Haze” induced a cinematic whiplash that

must have left more than a few sore necks in the screening room.

To be sure, trying to fit a Tsukamoto film comfortably into any festival lineup poses a challenge—but

even within Tsukamoto’s own body of work, “Haze” veers toward the extreme. A nameless man—

played by the director himself—wakes up in a dark hole, dressed in nothing but briefs and a t-shirt,

bearing a deep wound in his side, with no memory of who he is and how he got there.

Is he a prisoner of war? The plaything of some “rich pervert,” he wonders aloud? Don’t bother trying to

process this setup; Tsukamoto wastes no time before he plunges us further into the abyss, setting off

a frantic journey through a gauntlet of crude and bizarre torture devices built into a cramped labyrinth.

In a prime example of budgetary constraints necessitating resourcefulness and creativity, the film’s

set was built entirely in a tiny apartment rented expressly for the production. Indeed, it’s all about the

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Search... Go →Published on October 7th, 2013 | by Daniel Johnson 1

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claustrophobia here. The camera trembles, pushing in on Tsukamoto’s panicked face, the assault on

his fragile body rendered in graphic excess as he’s assailed by spikes and hammers. For the majority

of the film, we are never shown more than a few feet of the dark environs in any frame.

“Haze” draws unmistakably from the same well of sadistic creativity as similarly depraved and kinky

shockers that deal with entrapment;“Saw” (2004) and “Cube” (1997) come to mind. Being

anonymously and diabolically ensnared has the power to turn us all into confused reptiles, but the

specific lack of context in “Haze” makes its amnesiac’s existential plight all the more overt. A chance

glimpse through a slit in a wall reveals other poor souls writhing in agony, screaming into a black void

that recalls the soundstage hellscape of Nobuo Nakagawa’s graphic, infernal “Jigoku” (1960).

If this all sounds a little unbearable, don’t give up too soon—our hero eventually happens upon a

nameless female prisoner (Kaori Fujii), and together they try to unlock the mystery of their confinement

. Questions, dreams, and visions bubble up from the darkness, but in the absence of a clear answer,

and with strange sounds popping up all around them, the only thing to do is press on.

Fiendishly simple in concept and execution, “Haze” deftly combines abstract and concrete horror as

urgent questions are swept aside by even more urgent threats. The heart quivers and the skin crawls.

Even if you escape, it will stick with you.

Tags: 31 DAYS OF HORROR, All Hallows' Eve, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cinespect, Daniel Johnson,

film, Halloween, Haze, horror, Jeonju International Film Festival, movie, Paul Anthony Johnson, Shinya

Tsukamoto, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, The Mysterious Doctor

About the Author

Daniel Johnson is a filmmaker and editor living in NYC.

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