NEW RELIGION (2022)

New streaming on Screambox!
Directed/Written by Keishi Kondo.
Starring Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka, Saionji Ryuseigun

Kego Seto stars as Mayabi, an escort who is recently divorced after the accidental death of her daughter. When one of her co-workers flips out and begins stabbing people, her last customer, a mysterious man named Oka (played by Satoshi Oka) contacts Mayabi to pose for some pictures for him. Overcome by sadness, Mayabi agrees and when Oka takes photos of her legs, she begins to feel her deceased daughter at her feet. Further visits lead to more photos of Mayabi’s body parts resulting in her feeling more of her daughter’s presence. With her sanity fracturing, Oka’s true intentions, involving a societal and philosophical metamorphosis, come to light.

NEW RELIGION is a mesmerizing and surreal film from Japan heavy on body horror. But while most of the time, body horror involves something gross happening as a body transforms into something else, NEW RELIGION deals with more of a shifting of a way of seeing things. Oka, who lost his voice and speaks through a sound system as he slowly moves through his red tinted apartment taking pictures, explains this to Miyabi during their photography sessions. Since Mayabi is overcome with fear, she is vulnerable to Oka’s cult like beliefs, and her mind shifts to look at the world through his eyes as it proves to be beneficial to her by allowing her to have her child returned from the dead. While the philosophy isn’t particularly new. It’s basically imagining your own existence and believe in it rather than reality guiding your own experiences. Still, as her ex-husband watches her lose her sanity, it proves to be devastating not only to Mayabi’s world, but apparently others who Oka is photographing and manipulating.

All of that explained, NEW RELIGION is for the patient viewer more interested in experiencing sensations and absorbing transfixing imagery. It’s not the most active film. Much of it is filmed with a static, slowly zooming or panning camera. The colors are dream-like and the actors don’t quite act like they are of this reality, kind of like the actors in David Lynch’s film. I liked Keishi Kondo’s film despite the slow pace, but can admit that there will be those who just don’t have the patience for these types of films.

NEW RELIGION not quite the fascinating steps into a body horror laden landscape that David or Brandon Cronenberg has delivered. The concepts are very interesting, but still somewhat undercooked. I feel a lot of the characters don’t get the screentime to fully understand their actions, but the lead Kego Seto is sensational to watch undergo this mental metamorphosis. Much more of a highly effective drama following a heart-broken woman, NEW RELIGION does fit into the horror genre with its subtle horrors, vivid imagery, odd score, and strange themes. Just be prepared for a slow descent into a cultural mind-shift that suggests global transformations, not a fast paced thriller, and you might indeed buy into this NEW RELIGION.

Check out the trailer here!!