Shock Labyrinth 3D Review

• 24th Jan 2011

I have been waiting a long time for a new film from one of the masters of J-horror, Takashi Shimizu, the man responsible for the Japanese staple horror film, Ju On – The Grudge, its underrated sequel and the amazing little known psycho art-horror gem, Marebito. When I was given the opportunity to review one of this seminal director’s newer offerings I jumped at the chance.

If we forget the ridiculous title for a few minutes and concentrate on the plot, Shock Labyrinth revolves around a group of children who have grown up together. Within the groups past, a terrible tragedy has occurred involving the disappearance of one of the gang while exploring a house of horrors. Based in a real theme park near Mount Fuji (which boasts the ‘largest house of horrors in the world’) 10 years later, the gang who are into their late teens, in true J-Horror style, realise that this disappearance is about to come and bite them on the arse.

Rin, who is blind, receives a surprise visit from the missing Yuki one night. For all intents and purposes, Yuki appears uninjured but heavily traumatised, as one would expect having been forgotten about for 10 years. Rin calls Ken, her main confidant, who attends the scene. This leads to the whole gang being reunited to piece together just how Yuki could have returned to them and whilst trying to get Yuki medical attention in a hospital, a strange time shift occurs and the kids find that they’re transported to relive the events that fateful night and feel Yuki’s wrath smite them all.

A fitting premise, I think, for J-Horror and familiar ground for director Shimizu to tread. After all, most of his horror films revolve around the innocence of children and the wrath that a child can unleash if they feel wronged. Given the modern demand from the audience to experience terror in 3D, this also seems a logical step to take, so why does this film fall to pieces on practically all levels? I shall attempt to explain:

Let’s start with the title: Shock Labyrinth 3D really does not make a statement that any real imagination has gone into the storyline. In fact, the storyline contained in the film is bold and tries to address the connections that a gang of friends would experience and deals with feelings of collective guilt, betrayal and love in a similar way to a movie such as Stand By Me. The title alone makes the film sound like a second rate B-movie and to be fair that’s not too far off the truth.

The cast, whilst young, seem to have no chemistry together at all. That’s harsh actually. The portion of the storyline revolving around the gang in their younger days is actually very well acted and I found that I felt much more empathy with the younger kids in the movie than I did with their teenage counterparts, especially the character of Yuki’s little sister, who is adorable. The blind Rin, played by Ai Maeda, (Battle Royale 1 & 2) judging by her resume, should be able to deliver a strong performance but she can’t even seem to act the fact that she is blind; it takes more than walking around with your eyes closed and with your arms outstretched to let the audience know the character has a disability rather than they just can’t see. The immense troubles she has with this makes her whole performance falter. Then there’s Ken, (Yuya Yagira) who offers absolutely no charisma at all considering he’s pivotal to the storyline and considered the natural ‘leader’ of the group. Possibly, the biggest let down of them all (and one I’m finding a lot in Asian horror cinema these days) is the character of the ghost, Yuki, again, under-played by Misako Renbutsu. There is no malice to the Yuki character when there needs to be, nor is there any real depth to the character that makes you want to side with her and think, ‘That poor girl, left alone to die in a haunted house!’ It pains me to say so but the only characters that put even an iota of a sense of dread in me were the porcelain mannequins that populate the house of horrors. Even when static, they’re handled very well and at the film’s climax, they go some way to revert the movie back to a horror film and not a farce.

Shock Labyrinth 3D is not all bad news. If you can sit through the lacklustre acting and weak script, you’ll find that the film shot in 3D is actually well done. There is a lot of emphasis in the depth of shots i.e. corridors going on forever and there is a sense of vertigo in the movie. Also, whether by accident or not, when viewing the 3D experience at home, the 3D glasses give the film a very sepia kind of effect, muddying the colours and when the time slip effect happens in the movie it does feel like all is not right with the universe. There are also some handy little CG effects that help spice up some of the scarier scenes.

Shimizu’s obvious talent for direction is still apparent, although not at all helped by most of the cast. He really is trying to get across the underlying plot of children having to rely on each other, yet finding out home-truths along the way and his style is very much there in the way he sets a scene and were the punch lines in the scenes to be as he probably intended them to be, there would be some really quite good set-pieces to look forward to in this movie.

All in all, Shock Labyrinth 3D, instead of being a welcome new addition to any fan of the genre’s collection, will be very much a see and dispose of kind of film which, unfortunately for Shimizu, won’t help him in the comeback stakes. If the title of his newest film is anything to go by: Rabbit Horror 3D, he’s better off giving up before his reputation is ruined.

Dan Beadle