(2007, Japan)
The films of director Shinya Tsukamoto are always interesting, but usually challenging. His two TETSUO: IRON MAN were extreme and disorientating, HAZE was short and experimental, HIRUKO THE GOBLIN and GEMINI bizarre and surreal.
 
So NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE appears to be his most mainstream, high profile project. A short plot summary looks accessible enough - a psychic who can enter other people's dreams and does battle with a nightmare killer. This sounds familiar, in the vein of the many NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREETs, but appearances can be deceptive...
Detective Keiko Kirishima (played by pop star, Hitomi) arrives on the scene of a suicide, but is suspicious that all is not as it appears. When the case is linked to another violent and bloody death, her colleagues are astonished when she insists that it's not only a murder case, but is also in need of a psychic to help solve it.
 But her contact is a tortured suicidal soul who only works for his friends. He hates diving into peoples dreams for mere money. But when the unseen, ferocious and terrifying killer claims more victims, all of the detectives find themselves in danger.
The result is a dark, disorientating descent into a world of suicide and psychosis.
The cast are uniformly excellent. Although Ryuhei Matsuda has the title role, the majority of the film is shouldered by Hitomi, giving an impressive, wide-ranging peformance. This is only her second film. Actually, both their characters could be called the NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE of the title, one in the police force, one in dreamland. Youthful-looking Matsuda attracts many difficult roles, like his first in TABOO (a.k.a. GOHATTO), though he recently had a welcome break from angst in the comedy OTAKUS IN LOVE.
I failed to recognise Masanobu Ando as Detective Wakamiya. He was enjoyable as the star of the RED SHADOW (aka AKAKAGE) remake, one of the many schoolboy victims in the infamous BATTLE ROYALE, and is in the soon-to-be-cult-classic SAKURAN.
Shinya Tsukamoto, the writer/director also makes an appearance. Is there anything he can't do?
 
For the many nightmare scenes, the Hollywood answer would be to build dreamscapes from scratch on soundstages, like they did for THE CELL. Instead, beautifully crisp location photography uses the skyscrapers of the business district of Shinjuku, together with underwater footage, to evoke a disorientating unreal world, bathed in blue.
The 'style' of camera shake and machine-gun editing was too much for me over the entire length of the TETSUO feature films. But here it's an apt method only used for the frightening instances when the killer attacks in a frenzy. Anyone at all can wave a camera around and edit fast, but Tsukamoto has perfected the method, enabling the viewer to still follow the action.
 Altogether this is an ambitious and involving experience. Though I was a little disorientated towards the climax, when I started to lose track of the rules of the dream logic. I was even wandering at one point if the story was going to revert to the claustrophoic scenario of HAZE, his previous project.
The ever-present theme of suicide haunts most of the film, and may be too dark and downbeat for some. This isn't a non-stop gorefest type of horror, but one that aims to delve a little deeper.
Japan is currently spoilt for talented directors who can deliver original, stylish, effective horror films on relatively limited budgets. Together with Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sion Sono, Higuchinsky... (to name a few), all have proved that there's more to J-horror than long black hair.
NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE has already been a success and a sequel is already on the way - ironic considering how much the hero hates to use his abilities.
NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE is out on DVD in the US in February. Though there are already releases in Italy (PAL region 2, from RaroVideo) and Singapore, both with English subtitles, and both with better cover artwork than the US!
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