Serial Killers are an ironic and universal life line of the horror genre. What other way is there to make someone truly unnerved and afraid by basing something on a real and terrible phenomena of criminal activity. Serial Killers are so widely used that pretty much every country that has made a film will have it's answer to the serial killer sub-genre; the United States has of course countless examples including The Silence Of The Lambs and Seven, but France has The Crimson Rivers, Germany has M, Sweden has The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, South Korea has Memories Of Murder and one of Japan's cult classics is Cure.
Cure starts off with the a brutal murder of a sex worker in Japan's capital, Tokyo, the murderer is seemingly unaware of his crimes and the corpse has a mysterious X cut into it. Meanwhile on a beach not so far away, a mysterious amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) shows up to meet with an artist. Not long after, the wife of the artist dies in a similar way to the aforementioned sex worker and it's up to Detective Takabe (Koji Yajusho) and his psychiatrist colleague (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) to figure out what's going on.
The best serial killer films aren't the ones with the most kills, but the ones that get into your soul and unnerve you to the very core with their psychological thrills and atmospheric haunts. Cure is a perfect example of this; the kill count of “Mr Mayima” isn't huge, but its the way in which his murders are performed and the killer's general mysterious demeanour that get into the heads of both the audience and the protagonist, Detective Takabe.
There's not much of a soundtrack to Cure, which gives the film a very eerie and unnerving feel, adding to the haunting atmosphere. Each kill, often shot in a wide angle, is accompanied with complete silence and only the sounds of the killings taking place, the gun shot, the skin peeling off. It makes the kills seem matter of fact and not dramatic. This is simply something that's happening. In a more generic serial killer film, each kill would be accompanied by a deafening violin score, probably with a close up on the murder weapon and either the wounds or the reactions of the victims. Not in Cure, the director, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, wants you to be as accepting of these kills as the killers, not shocked. But of course, you still are.
The slow moving scenes and lack of a score, however artistic, can lead to the film dragging slightly in parts. If you're more accustomed to the quick beats of the likes of Seven, then Cure will be a lot more to handle. However, this is no means a completely bad thing and contributes to the atmosphere of the film. The script is a very intelligent one so it's good sometimes to let the film breathe and show you all it has to offer.
Cure is a cult classic in its own right, it has an original story that was certainly an inspiration for the much more dramatic Longlegs of last year. Fans of Asian horror will certainly want to seek this one out, it may not be your cup of tea if you're used to the thrills of the likes of Saw but if you give it a chance you may end up with a new favourite film.
Cure is out now in 4K by Eureka Entertainment
