The Shock Labyrinth 3D – Review

The plot is suitably bizarre, a revenge supernatural mystery with a time travel twist. How the man behind Ju-On: The Grudge could make such an awful movie is the only mystery I could make a connection with. As for the 3Dness, it’s about as subtle as a brick. In all honesty, I could just end the review at that and tell you to pass on this film but I will try to delve deeper into what makes this film so awful. A movie that starts off quite nicely. But as it progresses and with more riddles and things happening out of nowhere, you will loose focus of the movie and it’s main characters after awhile. And although it has a good idea as it’s stronghold, it still is too long, for it’s own good. It feels as if the running time, is twice as long, as it actually is. While not much is happening and you still loose the plot/focus of the story, it’s hard to find many good things in this.

The narrative changes time and location more times then I care to count. I tried watching the more intense scenes in 3D only to find that they were even less effective as, though there is added depth, everyone is a weird shade of green. I still liked the cinematography overall (not the 3-D effect mind you) and some story beats it took. But as many people here, I was expecting much more of this. I can put aside my annoyances about a poor plot if the resolution at least answers my questions. But, I found the ending to be too vague, and unclear about what happened to who, and what was even the point of the hour and some I sat through watching this.

As far as acting goes, the child actors go very well and capture how a combination few childish mistakes can end in tragedy but the adult cast is for the most part hopeless. The one who does hold her water just so happens to disappear from the screen all too soon. There is much walking about in ill lit corridors and even if the deliberately cheesy set is unsettling at first it becomes tiresome all too soon. Good horror manages to increase the tension with each repetition but bad horror cannot help but flounder when employing such a tactic. The seasoned foreign horror buff will not find anything new here, only disappointment. After skipping about madly as if in search of closure the plot settles for the never missing twist. It is disappointing that a director that has already shown how he can inject innovation into J-horror should produce such a dispirited movie.\

Shock Labyrinth is rarely if at all scary. When seeing a horror film, that is, for me at least, the most important element. No scares? Failure. To confuse things further Ken, the lead character keeps getting an unexplained pain in his head, and Rin, a blind girl, periodically gets her sight back! What!? I wish Takashi had stuck with the children and the far more compelling story. After establishing the basic premise of the story, it gets stuck in a pattern of repeating the same things over and over. Oh, and there’s a ghostly bunny that flies through walls. So in conclusion, let me put it this way, if you’re scared of plush rabbit toys, this is the horror film for you. Everyone else, stay away.