Ghost Mask: Scar review: A creepy soap opera plays out in this understated horror thriller.
Ghost Mask: Scar review by Steve Palace.
Ghost Mask: Scar review
When you watch a horror movie about plastic surgery, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. A scalpel-led spectacular of carnage with social commentary about humanity’s reliance on the perfect image thrown in.
To a certain extent that’s what happens in Takeshi Sone’s psychological thriller. However what also develops is something of a surprise. You know it’s going to be wince-inducing at some point. Yet in the run up to the blood and gore Sone crafts an understated and eerie tale that shows a brain at work behind the viscera.
In a style reminiscent of David Cronenberg, the director takes us to the brightly-lit streets of Seoul, where Japanese student Miyu (Yurika Akane) is searching for her missing sister. There she runs into Lee Yuha’s Hana, a brilliant plastic surgeon living in an intense relationship with damaged soul Hirosawa Sou.
As Miyu develops a friendship with Hana, this exposes tensions between the lovers and a simmering atmosphere of menace behind the glossy facades of the city’s brightest and best. Sone opens the film with contrasting shots of clean surfaces, from the glass of skyscrapers to the gleam of a blade, hinting at the starkness and violence to come.
Ghost Mask: Scar review
Also in the mix are a couple of dream-like sequences, though they wind up more like nightmares. There’s very little that takes place in shadows and darkness. Sone wants this story (written by Etsuo Hiratani) to be shown in full view, as if under the bulbs of a surgeon’s theatre.
David Audet Jellifish’s sparse piano score complements the action well and even though the clues are writ large onscreen there’s still genuine mystery over what’s going to happen with these characters.
When the veins eventually open and the red stuff flows, after an hour or so of outright tension, it’s almost a disappointment. Horror fans will probably find it rewarding but for me it was like a video game, though a well-“executed” one. This section is less assured, though Sone and the cast handle it with gusto.
Ghost Mask: Scar review
The female dynamic of the movie is one of its strengths, with Lee Yuha making the biggest impression as a flawless face-changer with her own problems hidden deep beneath that smile. Everyone else is decent, and while the narrative is on the soapy side it’s a Twin Peaks rather than an EastEnders vibe that wins out.
At 81 mins it doesn’t outstay its welcome and sustains an atmosphere with the style and efficiency expected from its grim but elegant subject matter. Ghost Mask: Scar will leave its mark on you long after the anaesthetic wears off.
Ghost Mask: Scar review by Steve Palace, August 2018.
Ghost Mask: Scar screened at Arrow Video Frightfest.
