For the first half of this movie, mostly consisting of introductions and rising suspense, the story was fantastic. Many of the scenes were unsettling and they successfully introduced each important character while keeping the plot going. Special effects-wise, the movie is absolutely laughable, yet the creepy portions of the movie kept the suspense building. In fact, that's one of the major successes of the movie; it builds tension by having creepy moments interspersed with unsettling scenery and props. Unfortunately, due to the writer seemingly giving up after building aforementioned suspense, we get a movie that builds lots of suspense, but never really tells us what the monster was, or how it was defeated. We are left bereft of resolution and closure. It is left to the imagination how real the monster was, and there is no satisfaction of knowing that the cast has overcome great obstacles.The movie is tense, and builds suspense, but on a plot line, it doesn't comprehend that a climax and resolution are necessary to end a good story. Without a climax, there is no way to truly evaluate a story for meaning, and thus the strong first half is useless.*spoiler warning*As far as I could tell, there is an attempt to use uncertainty between reality and hallucination as a plot device. When a doctor in the research reel suggests that the patients hallucinate an astral projection, they are /actually/ projecting, and a vampire-like doppelganger takes control. Supposedly, by believing in an afterlife, one can protect themselves from these beings. (There's also some strange portion about a virgin becoming pregnant). The film has pretty lofty goals, but could have been trimmed and given a climax and resolution. If that had been done, it would have been a good addition to the genre.Unfortunately, the film does a poor job of providing this information, leaving the viewer without any solid facts to orient themselves. This disorientation is excellent while building suspense, but should have been fixed after the climax, or during.

After viewing an old film reel containing experiments on the human brain, Dr Hattori becomes interested in researching to see what happens when a person dies, and if there is indeed an afterlife where people are "re-born". Years later, one of Hattori's test subjects is actually one of her own daughters, Miyuki, along with other teens Kazochi, Takumi, and Rieko. However, not long after the experiment has been performed, Miyuki disappears, and it's here that her sister, Kaori, along with Miyuki's boyfriend Motojima and a detective, begin to search for her. As the search continues, Kaori starts to experience what appear to be hallucinations, but these only strengthen her resolve into finding out the truth about what her mother is doing and what happened to her sister.I've seen quite a few strange Japanese horrors in my time, but The Sylvian Experiments has got to rank up with one of the strangest ever. Right from the very start, you catch yourself wondering what's going on as it gets confusing pretty quickly, so if you don't keep up in the first 5 minutes then you have no hope for the remaining 90.It's not what I was expecting either, which was a good, creepy Japanese horror, but it's not creepy or scary (apart from maybe the idea of humans getting experimented on in such a way). Instead, it's more of a surreal psychological drama that has a Jacobs Ladder feel to it. It's a pity because it had all the elements to make it good, scary horror.As mentioned earlier, it's a very confusing movie, and the story does jump about a lot. I know foreign films have a tendency to do this, but this is on another level and quite a good few times you don't know if the characters are hallucinating or if it's real images they are experiencing. It's also a pretty slow movie so if you combine that with the confusing story then there's a chance you may just give up.Overall, it's definitely an intriguing film, but it's ultimately a disappointing one.

'Kyofu' starts out as intriguing only to plummet into muddled vagaries and plot-less shenanigans with an overly ambitious undertone and is never fully realized. The initial thrust of the movie includes a failed suicide who ends up a guinea pig captive of her own mother, the experiments including brain surgery in a quest to alter human perception and bring the species to a whole new level. A chilling scenario given that the point of the reference were human experiments that the Imperial army actually performed on prisoners of war during WWII.In fact, the horrors of such things like Unit 731 are beyond anything 'Kyofu' could ever hope to achieve, testifying that real life can so often trump fiction. But perhaps it is unfair to expect this movie to deliver on that account, however, this is a movie spawned from a rich tradition of scary cinema and it fails to live up to the expectations within the genre.Instead of exploring a genuinely scary story the movie loses itself in meanderings about life after death, virgin pregnancy, a looming bright light that becomes very fake looking CG created fog to represent the never quite explained threat, and there is even one of those infuriating twists that by now are all too tiresome.'Kyofu' does try to be scary and its vocabulary is for the most part that of Asian horror with a slow pace, plenty of moody scenery be it a creepy clinic or the many forest scenes that seem to invoke such classics as the Tale of Two Sisters. Unfortunately it does not adhere to the aesthetics by adding conspicuous special effects that become more laughable as the movie reaches its convoluted climax.Through most of it there is a feeling of disconnected bits all pieced together with no actual sense, almost as if scenes could have been edited in any random order to the same general effect. While not long it feels like it exhausted itself long before it comes to an actual conclusion. The characters seem only half present and their very stilted lines about the afterlife ring hollow.All and all, it's a shame how such promise was wasted. Here was an opportunity for dealing with one of the darkest sides of Japan, its frighteningly high suicide rate and to possibly go into beyond disturbing human experiments to justify the title of 'Kyofu' (Fear). Hailing from the writer of the ever so famous Ringu this effort comes across as a disappointment on all fronts.

It's quite unbelievable how much people are still praising the Japanese horror genre. Let me tell you, as a real horror fan and lover, that there are still far more great Hollywood genre movies than Japanese ones out there. Problem with Japanese genre movies often is that they are all too much alike in story and atmosphere and usually aren't helped by a very high budget.Problem with this movie is that it presents itself as a mysterious and clever one, while in fact it's being neither really. The movie is only mysterious because it's being told that way but not because the story in itself is being a very interesting or real clever and mysterious one. It actually causes the movie to work out more confusing and messy than anything else really.It's actually hard to believe this movie got written and directed by the same man who wrote the screenplay for the original "Ringu" movie and most of its official sequels, which I all also personally quite liked.The movie is also far too slow with its buildup, during its first half. When looking back at it, most of the stuff that happens in the first half isn't even that relevant for the movie and is also quite out of tone with its second half, which is far more horror orientated.But it's not like the movie is having any real good horror in it though. It's the type of horror that is featuring ghostly figures and lots of computer effects, that just never become scary. The movie also just really doesn't have the right required atmosphere for that.There is far too much wrong with this movie to consider it a remotely decent or recommendable one, not even for the lovers of Japenese horror (no, I am not saying J-horror!).4/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/