SHOCK LABYRINTH 3D (2009)

Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Written by Daisuke Hosaka
Starring Yûya Yagira, Ai Maeda, Misako Renbutsu, Ryo Katsuji, Erina Mizuno

The director of THE GRUDGE, THE GRUDGE 2 and JU-ON, Takashi Shimizu, is at it again with creepy Japanese children running around long corridors and scaring the pants off viewers. I feel there is much more style than substance to his latest film THE SHOCK LABYRINTH 3D though. Not having a 3D television, I watched this one in 2D and maybe it was because I didn’t get that 3rd dimension that this film failed to grip me as Shimizu’s previous films have. The film isn’t without some truly harrowing moments and surreal imagery, but for some reason, the story failed to really grab a hold of me.

THE SHOCK LABYRINTH is about a group of kids whose friend disappears while they are wandering as a group through the halls of a carnival house of horrors. Ten years pass and the missing girl Yuki, Misako Renbutsu, shows up out of the blue in need of medical attention. As the now grown kids take Yuki to a hospital, they find themselves trapped in the same twisted funhouse where they lost Yuki ten years prior. What transpires is a swirling trip down the rabbit hole as mannequins move on their own, stuffed bunny rabbits float and birth humans, snow falls indoors and all sorts of madness ensues.

In terms of beautiful and haunting imagery, THE SHOCK LABYRINTH is chock full of it. There truly are gorgeously surreal images atop more gorgeously surreal images, one occurring after another and some happening in the same scenes together. There are some truly freaky scenes especially the moving mannequins and the creepy bunny. Shimizu does a great deal of spinning in this film, following never ending corridors and rotating up and down spiral staircases. This attention to movement while focusing on the optical illusion aspects conveys a sense of true unease, as if the ground itself is unstable and eliciting vertigo in the viewer. To look at, this film is right up there with the original GRUDGE in creepy imagery and overall sense of spookiness.

But really, that’s all THE SHOCK LABYRINTH is—a funhouse ride. Sure it’s cool to see these images one after another, but if you really aren’t invested in the characters, it’s just a Nine Inch Nails video and not a story. I really didn’t care about the story itself by the time this one ended and found myself much more into the amazingly bugnuts effects and mood shots. The story is not awful and neither are the performances for that matter. It’s just that the batty imagery seems to be the focus of the director and it shows in every narratively hollow, but undeniably creepy corridor of THE SHOCK LABYRINTH.