When J Horror first burst on the international scene a decade ago, many foreign fans wondered where it all came from. Ancient folk tales? The fabulously twisted imaginations of the creators? Yes to both, but one major source of scary J Horror stories, not often considered abroad, is urban legends, mostly the kind of kids tell each other. One of the most popular is that of the Slit-Mouthed Woman, who became a topic of schoolyard conversation in the late 1970s. She was described as a tall woman with long hair, who dressed in a trenchcoat, wore a white surgical mask and wielded a pair of long scissors. Approaching the victim, she would remove the mask, exposing a mouth cut from ear to ear. Opening it in a horrible rictus, she would say "Am I pretty?" at which point the victim would either faint dead away or run for dear life. In the suburban bedtown where the legend began, went the story, children began disappearing, spirited away by the Slit-Mouthed Woman and never seen again.
This is also the basic story of Koji Shiraishi's Slit-Mouthed Woman (Kuchisake Onna). The film is not pitched at the same sort of children who spread the legend in the first place. Instead it is targeted at everyone from teens to adults who remember the legend from childhood, though stressed moms who flare out at their kids - and feel guilty afterwards - may want to give it a pass.
Its message: abuse your children at your karmic peril. Kids the age of the film's victims had also better beware. They might end up thinking of mom as a boogeyman in residence - not the best recipe for family harmony.
As the film begins, the quiet town of Midoriyama is being swept by rumors in the schoolyard and classroom that, after a 27-year hiatus, the Slit-Mouthed Woman is once again on the prowl. Adults mock this talk, until a boy is snatched by a wild-eyed woman who meets the above description, in front of his terrified friends.
Meanwhile a teacher at the boy’s school, Ms. Yamashita (Sato Eriko) discovers that one of her students, Mika (Kuwana Rie), is afraid of her own mother (Kawai Chiharu) - and has bruises that explain why. Yamashita, who at first refused to believe Mika, is shocked when she see the evidence of abuse. Then she is frightened out of her wits when You-Know-Who appears - and grabs poor Mika.
Yamashita is now worried that her own daughter may meet the same fate - the girl is living with Yamashita’s ex-husband and resents her mom for certain words and actions Yamashita now intensely regrets.
Then her colleague Matsuzaki (Kato Haruhiko) starts hearing a strange voice in his head - and he somehow knows where it coming from: the Slit-Mouthed Woman. As the revelations continue, the pace quickens, until the final descent into a red-roofed house of horrors.
Sato Eriko, best known abroad as the babelicious android in Cutie Honey (2004), may seem an odd choice for such a dark role, but she proves her worth - especially in the screaming, running and knife-wielding departments. Kato Haruhiko, who also confronted the walking dead in Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s apocalyptic drama Pulse (Kairo, 2001), has the right wounded-but-determined air for the role, but is also a sane, stabilizing presence.
Director Koji Shiraishi is no Hitchcock, but he keeps the tension building with, by Hollywood standards, starkly minimal means, while never descending into camp. He is also after more than the usual scares, concluding with a disturbing primal statement about the mother-child bond - and the hell that can result when that bond is shattered by madness - or evil.