Posted by eric ringer in News, Trailers on May 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

WEST COAST PREMIERE

EXTE is the latest film by director Sion Sono, whose 2001 Suicide Circle gained him an international notoriety in cutting-edge contemporary horror and social commentary. Tokyo port authorities discover several cargo containers from China filled with the corpses of young women, victims of the cruel and illicit sale of human organs. An autopsy on one women defies explanation as her entire body cavity is filled with long strands of hair. One of the morgue workers (Ren Osugi) holds a secret fetish for women’s hair which drives him to steal the corpse and hide it away in his apartment. Within a very short period, and to his great delight, he finds that the young woman’s body continues to grow huge, flowing amounts of hair, which he lovingly snips from her and enthusiastically sells to local hair salons for hair extensions, a relatively new and booming trend. In his daily rounds to pawn the hair, he comes into contact with Yoko (Chiaki Kuriyama), a young and aspiring salon apprentice whose own hair he immediately falls in love with. Out of giddy generosity, he offers Yoko and her fellow workers several free samples which they gratefully accept. It is not long, however, when they all begin to realize that something horrible befalls everyone who comes in contact with the hair. Only the morgue worker, who devotedly adores his new hair-sprouting guest seems impervious to her curse.

At a glance this sounds almost too weird to be creepy. It’s creepy. Not sure why or how or who started this theme, but little kids in horror can be *really* creepy. You’ll find this here as the little girl in Exte (aka “hair extensions”) is witness to some really bizarre and, yes, creepy & scary stuff.

Our main weirdo and the great lover of hair, Ren Osugi, is a daft obsessive who has been warming up to his love for hair over the years. By the time he encounters this corpse who is a veritable fountain of hair we seen him quickly change into the realm of the deranged. Even as the demonic hair fills his apartment, Ren is not only unfazed he is approaching a demented nirvana. It quickly comes to light that the hair, with a life of its’ own is quite likely involved in grave bodily harm as Yoko and others unwittingly attach strands of these killer strands to the heads of their salon clients.

Demonic hair that seems to make no bones about its’ victims. Well beyond divine justice these terrifying locks have neither qualms nor morals, ripping the flesh of characters who are seen as good as well as the clearly sinister. While Sion Sono’s Suicide Club was filled with gore there was a subtle sense of humor throughout. Here, you will find an ongoing sense of creepy. Over the top? Unquestionably, yet the film still maintains a primal quality that will make your skin crawl.

Another Hole In The Head Film Festival runs June 5th-22nd, 2008 at the Roxie Film Center, 3117 Sixteenth Street, in San Francisco.