Asian Nightmares

Way back in 2004 I covered Uzumaki / Spiral (2000), the surreal adaptation of Junji Ito's manga by director Higuchinsky. Although the director has seemingly dropped off the filmmaking map after his feature film Tokyo 10+01 (2003), Bone House Asia and Facets Video have released Long Dream / Nagai yume (2000), his second hour-long film, with some supportive interview material.

Also based on a manga by Ito (creator of Tomie), Long Dream is a weird and creepy tale of a man who's been physically transformed by a mounting affliction which causes him to experience increasingly epic dreams, fantasies, ands nightmares over a short sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, things just get worse...

Also reviewed is Norio Tsuruta's feature-length edit of Dream Cruise, his Masters of Horror episode based on a story by Kôji Suzuki (Ringu, Dark Water / Honogurai mizu no soko kara). Housed in Anchor Bay's Season 2 skull, the episode contains more dialogue scenes than the 58 min. broadcast version, although the extra material doesn't smoothen the flaws in Tsuruta's meandering ghost tale.

The DVD's extras are first-rate, though, and provide a portal into filming in Japan through the eyes of the seres' American cast and crew (namely co-star Daniel Gillies, and executive producer/creator Mick Garris).

Next: more soundtracks, and another pair of horror classics from Legend Films - The Skull, and The Man Who Could Cheat Death.

And imminent: reviews of Peter Watkins' Edvard Much (Project X), and the refreshing documentary The Dali Dimension: Decoding the Mind of a Genius (MVD Visual).



- MRH

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