Unholy Women (Kowai onna) (2006) • Japan

The only reason I picked this one up is because I'm stalking the four women who starred in the fabulous Japanese independent film Strawberry Shortcakes and one of those women is in this film. She's my least favorite of the four but it's probably not her fault, more likely it's due to her character in that film.

Unholy Women is three unconnected thirty minute shorter films packed together to make a longer ninety minute film. My target stars in the first of the three called "Rattle Rattle". She's hanging out with some guy who's married and that's all we need to know in order to proceed to the rest of the film where my heroine runs around screaming, all frightened and sweaty, trying to avoid the clutches of a J-Horror-Goth-Chick—which is another reason I picked this one up. I love the JHGC.

Usually the JHGC is depicted as a ghostly white, youngsterish, somewhat sympathetic, semi-sensuous spirit having a bad hair day. The one in this film is ugly with a capital F, and wears red. I think she is supposed to be more real than her genre sisters but she does have the signature slow, bone rattling shuffle that allows for lots of responsive screaming time. It's hard to say what "Rattle Rattle" is about because I don't remember it having much of a story beyond the running around and the infidelity setup, but I think it's pretty good because of several JHGC moments. I don't remember how it ends.

The second film is called "Steel" and it's pretty funny because it tries to be creepy but doesn't know which way to go. It stars a girl who is a burlap sac from the waist up and likes to sew. Her father pumps (literally, with a pump) gallons of what appears to be liposuction remains through a tube into her sac part and lures young men into dating her by offering them a job and showing them a picture of some hot babe. One guy, with the requisite diversity training I guess, dates her and sees beyond, through, around—I don't know—the burlap sac part and tries to have sex with her. He crawls between her legs in an enlightened post-feminism foreplay maneuver to get under her sac and never comes out. Surprise, surprise.

The third film is called "Sleep My Child", and it's about a cute young boy whose world is mysterious and confusing, has some dead people floating around behind him, a freaky grandmother, and an abusive mother with an overly kind public comportment, all of which is exacerbated by the fact that his mom always seems to be waving goodbye to him when she really means 'come here'. That confused me too.

All in all Unholy Women has some reasonably creepy atmosphere without a lot of plot to get in the way. Look for it in the cheap bin or on late night cable.

★★★