Immersion is a 2023 Japanese sci-fi mystery horror film about the inexplicable deaths that befall employees of a VR-tech company.
Written and directed by Takashi Shimizu (Ox-Head Village; Homunculus; Howling Village; The Shock Labyrinth 3D; The Grudge 2004 and sequel; Ju-on: The Grudge).
Plot:
A brilliant young programmer starts a new job with a VR tech firm on a small island. Their big project has been to map the entire island and create a VR world where people can escape their normal lives. Think of the meta-verse but in Japanese style.
However, two people involved in the concept are found dead, their deaths are identical. On investigation of their VR recording, a mysterious glitch manifesting as a woman in red is discovered.
The island’s psychic confirms the woman is the ghost of Imajo, a slave woman violently killed by her captors after her illicit affair is discovered, who has now been unleashed from the other world into the real one…
Our review:
If there is one modern J-horror movie director whose work you’d love to watch, it has to be a toss-up between Hideo Nakata and the director of this movie – Takashi Shimizu.
Hot off the tails of some very average horror films, Shimizu is back again with another one of his cinema experiments. This time he looks at urban legend horror with a VR flavour.
And for the first hour of the film I had honestly thought that Shimizu had done it! After misfiring with Howling Village, Suicide Forest Village and the ridiculous Homunculus, I thought this was going to be like Ox-Head Village.
But one thing Shimizu is good at doing is subverting my expectations. And it happened again in this film when it decided to take what should have been a rather simple explanation for the ending and turn it into something convoluted.
The strange thing is, that he had the ending already sorted with the VR concept. So why did he make it more complex than it needed to be?
Conceptually the movie has so much potential. Playing on the fears of modern tech like VR, the movie has a strong message about the dangers of virtual worlds.
Frankly, that’s where the movie should have stopped and then tried to improve upon this theory, rather than continuing down the path of exploring a character called Shigeru, which just ends up adding an unnecessary plot line in an attempt to explain why he has been ostracised from the community.
This in turn then leads to even more confusing moments. The idea is that Imajo is trying to get revenge on the people who have wronged her – so then what exactly did the VR crew do to her to make her want to attack them?
The movie felt like a mash-up of three of four different short story ideas tied together with the concept of VR as an over-arching technological evil – something that people don’t fully grasp. So what better way to play into people’s fear than to say it’s a portal to another world where a demented Yurei lives?
I like that Shimizu is not afraid to try something different and fail. I just wish he didn’t fail as much as he has lately because this one could have been a movie that people talk about for a long time.
A potentially great idea has been ruined by trying to squeeze too many concepts and ideas into one film, meaning that your attention is always being drawn to a new plot line or character before the conclusion of the previous section is over. Only watch Immersion to see that Shimizu is trying to do something different with J-horror.
The Arty Dans, MOVIES & MANIA
YouTube reviews:
Teaser trailer:
Trailer:
Technical specs:
1 hour 49 minutes
Aspect ratio: 16:9 HD
