Friday 12 July 2013

The Incite Mill (2010) - ★½

Director: Hideo Nakata
Writers: Honobu Yonezawa (Novel), Satoshi Suzuki (Screenplay)
Stars: If you really want to know, click HERE.

The Incite Mill was such a draining experience for me. The characters were all stupid, annoying, irrational and completely unbelievable. This directly resulted in the whole story becoming a catastrophic mess, which is sad because it had potential. Perhaps the worst thing of all was the excruciatingly terrible performances by most of the cast. It's like Hideo Nakata wanted this to be like an Agatha Christie novel (albeit way more radical), but it lacked the wit and the suspense of most basic mysteries. I think it took about an hour before it became painful to watch. (Also, I swear I've seen the exact same story before. I can't quite put my finger on it).

An advertisement has been spread around that there's an experiment which pays insanely high amounts of money to anyone willing to participate. So ten individuals sign up for it, without asking questions or having the slightest inkling for what they're in for. Turns out that it's a test of human nature in which the participants are left to ponder whether one of them is a killer, and whether they will kill to survive. One by one the mundane deaths occur, leaving me to wonder what the hell I was doing watching this film.

I'm not gonna lie, when I found out that the creators of Ringu (1998) made this movie, I expected quite a bit of suspense and intelligence. There was none of that here. Absolutely none. This movie was a complete and utter dud. It gets half a star extra simply because the concept of the story is really cool. Unfortunately, the execution was worse than I ever thought it could be.


All of the characters are idiots, that's a given. They constantly make the wrong decisions... a child could make wiser choices than them. How am I supposed to care for such ignoramuses for characters? The main character whines, complains, and is so naive that he becomes the most annoying character of all! Not to mention, the acting is cringe-worthy. I shudder at the thought of their performances. If there's anything worse than stupid characters, it's stupid characters played by bad actors.

There were some alright aspects to it I guess. It had a very chrome, underground and futuristic vibe to it. I guess the elements were there to make a good movie, but they completely miscast the film and filled the dialogue with schmaltz and cheese. As you can tell, I got no enjoyment out of watching The Incite Mill. I don't think even the biggest fans of Japanese cinema, or horror, or thrillers, could find this a good movie.


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