GREATFUL DEAD

Kumi Takiuchi, who plays the female lead in GREATFUL DEAD , has one of the most terrifying smiles I have ever seen.  It is bursting with enthusiasm, filled with joy, and deeply psychotic.  Takiuchi drives DEAD with her scary performance although it is not the only thing worthwhile about this film.

As good a portrayal of a psychopath as I’ve seen in  a long, long time, DEAD gives us a female character who was immoral and sociopathic from the beginning due to a combination of bad parenting and too much television.  Her older sister praises the ordinary while Takiuchi’s Nami who is independently wealthy due to an inheritance spends her days documenting lonely people whom she labels “solitarians”.  In order to be classified as such, the people in question must be completely alone in life.  Nami spies on them and documents their activities in a journal.

One such solitarian ,played by Takashi Sasano, is a has been celebrity who lives alone and has a quarrelsome relationship with his married son.  Nami is content to live in her own world and spy on him until he is befriended by a young female missionary.  At this point, Nami loses it and all hell breaks loose.

The violence in the second half of this film is a lot wilder than I expected after a more sedate first half.  There is a body count and Takiuchi is a genuinely scary presence.  There is a bit of a trick ending that brings to mind both REPULSION and the French thriller INSIDE in which we find out more about her inspiration.

One other thing I liked about this film is its direct criticism of consumerism.  As a kid, Nami ordered all kinds of products which was her way of dealing with family strife and lonliness.  This carries into her adult life in ways that are not fully revealed until the end.

A really unique film that is plenty terrifying as well as shocking and gory but also clever and well acted.