It’s a three-pack! I love horror anthologies, ever since discovering Amicus anthologies as a pre-teen (yes, I’ve been messed-up for quite some time). This one is from three directors, one from Hong Kong, one from South Korea, and one from Takashi Miike. “Takashi Miike” was all I needed to hear.
I’d love to be able to say “Takashi Miike can’t make a bad film” but I’ve seen Visitor Q… and Gozu… alright, the dude’s made over a hundred movies, including Audition, Ichi the Killer, One Missed Call, and Imprint. They can’t all be great, a whole lot are total stinkers, but the ones that hit the mark are peerless.
The official title is “Three… Extremes” with the ellipse. Cute, it’s like dotting the “i” in your name with a little heart. “You know what would make this movie even edgier? If we put a dramatic pause before the ‘Extremes’ in the title. It will seem EXTRA extreme that way!” This is a sequel, the first one was titled “Three” which would be a pretentious name for a restaurant much less a horror movie. Not to mention, there are a lot of movies titled “Three,” including a 2024 flick about a sexytime threesome, a 2006 Billy Zane romance, a 2012 Indian romance thriller, a 2023 movie about a boy who gets possessed by a flock of genies, a 2016 Hong Kong action film, and a 2006 “Christian horror” movie, which sounds just awful. I didn’t know “Christian Horror” was a thing. Who was raising their fist and demanding this sub-sub-genre? It’s such an American concept, one rooted in branding and marketing. See, all the new-school American Christian clubs are only successful if they have a lot of members paying their dues. Think of them like customers, if you don’t have a lot of customers, you don’t have a great church with all the associated expensive toys. So they decided “Hey, what if we go out and tell people they needed to be in our club? Their whole afterlife depends on it? THAT will shake them out of their trees!” However, it’s only so effective. People are used to the churchy pairs in white shirts and backpacks approaching them in the mall or knocking on their door. They’ve made a bad name for themselves, and that waters down the brand. Oh hey, let’s focus on younger people, and we’ll incorporate all the things that THEY love, only with a strong Christian theme to it and dreamy posters of Jesus with his wind-swept hair, then The Kids (TM) will know we’re pretty cool, and kids like things that are cool, so they’d definitely join us!” This leads to Christian Rap and Christian Metal and Christian Death Metal and Christian Punk and Christian skateboarding and now I suppose Christian Horror, too. Mind you I don’t have anything against religion. People want to belong, people are uncomfortable not knowing certain truths, people need community. They’re not “sheep” they’re just ordinary people devoted to their personal mythology. I just think it’s weird when they send out salesmen to convince more people that they need to come join their club and not those other clubs because those other clubs are damned and only our club will save your soul – it’s a total shakedown.
Also, “Christian Horror” sounds fucking lame.
Back to the movie. The first story titled “Dumplings” sees an aging starlet going to buy magic dumplings from a lady who I promise that I didn’t look at her cleavage when she leaned over the pot of dumplings. The secret ingredient? Chopped-up strawberry jello! Lady eats the dumplings, chef sings a song about lakes and fish and sunshine, then boom! Starlet goes home and her husband writes her a check for some furniture. Hot! Nothing gets my mojo flowing like free furniture. Also, cake.
Magic dumplings make you younger and pregnant. The chef goes right ahead and tells Miss Movies what the secret ingredient Really is, and Miss Movies doesn’t bat a lash. I won’t say what that is, but I will say that whatever awful happens to these characters by the end is not gonna bring any tears to THIS face.
…I’m pointing at myself. Not Mido’s face. Once she learned the dumplings weren’t shrimp she stopped caring.
The second entry is titled “Cut,” about a horror filmmaker. Yep, it’s a horror filmmaker making a horror film about a filmmaker who makes horror films. The filmmaker that this film was made about lives in a big gaudy mansion that Federico Fellini would call “tacky” but only has a one-car garage for his one car. Weird. Oh hold on, this mansion is actually a soundstage, one that is invaded by a horror filmmaker.
Follow along with me.
So a horror filmmaker makes a horror film about a filmmaker making a horror film until his horrible home is invaded by a filmmaker who wants to make a horror film out of the reality of the aforementioned horror filmmaker.
Something like that. It’s okay. Or to go with the formula, “It’s… Okay.” Just okay, I wasn’t really into this one.
The last entry, titled “Box,” the one made by Miike, is about circus folk. Twin circus sisters and their circus daddy. Circus twin grows up and moves into a derelict apartment building or a disused warehouse or a condemned school or a cursed hospital… it’s an old shitty building with no one inside it but the circus sister and the ghost of her twin and YES. It’s a ghosty episode. Japanese horror people LOVE them some ghost stories! I love ghost stories. Surviving sister is in an empty building and rides in an empty bus out to an empty field and it’s already suspect because Japan is crowded crowded everywhere BUT this place?
Also, there’s a box. Bet you weren’t expecting THAT! A box and a bunch of circus family drama, and ghosts. Ghosts and revenge and bad dreams and a bit of incest because Takashi Miike writes some fucked-up characters. Don’t try to make too much sense of this one, the pieces aren’t going to fit together, just enjoy the weird.
The first vignette is the best (they made a full lengther out of this one a couple years later), second one is okay but if you gotta poop or make some dinner or go out and get the mail this would be the best time to do it, and the last one is good weird ghosty incesty bullshit.