A huge drop in quality for this the third Scorpion movie. Much of the visual flair is gone and the plot, which should be a simple revenge story, has trouble finding any focus. It does open with an absolutely fantastic scene involving a severed arm and a casual walk through Tokyo. I feel like the whole movie would be better if they just stayed with the arm the whole time. Instead we get another uncomfortable rape, but this time add incest to the mix. Throw in a couple of abortions and then we’re back to prison for the final revenge. Could have been so much better if they just focused on Scorpion trying to live among the normies.

The second film in this series has the same visual flair of the first. This entry is a pretty standard prisoners on the run plot where the escapees do stupid stuff that will, of course, lead them to being captured again. A little bit more gory than before, which is good. But a little bit more rapey than before, which is not so good.

Japanese horror anthology from the mid-sixties that features beautiful surreal sets and cinematography but is very light on the horror. There are four stories. I liked the first two in which there was killer hair and an ice ghost. The third is the longest segment and spends way too much time in historical flashbacks. The fourth one is about a ghost that lives in tea. Yeah, that’s about it.

In the middle of the film I kind of forgot that it opens in with crazy dreamy imagery. It wasn’t until it started to return to its more obvious dreaminess that the whole thing began to click with me. I still don’t think I fully got it… something about art and truth and a mid-life crisis. Doesn’t matter. It’s beautiful to look at and by the end you want to watch it again, knowing where it’s heading. I’m surprised I liked this as much as I did.

I guess fantastical prison movies have been a thing in Japan since long before Story of Ricky. This one is as sleazy as a Roger Corman outing  but ups the brutality of the guards to crazy levels. It’s not terribly gory, just ruthless and hyper-stylized. The best scene is when a fellow prisoner goes nuts in the shower and the lighting plus the make-up turn her into a wild kabuki killer. There are apparently three more films in this series, so we’ll see how far they are going to take things.

Apparently this is a highly divisive movie. Lots of one-star reviews and lots of five-star reviews. I liked it but I didn’t think it was great. It sets itself up as the ultimate puzzle movie where clues abound in every frame. Eventually you realize the point of the whole thing is that looking for meaning is futile. I can see why that would annoy viewers who are looking for nicely wrapped up answers. This cop-out thesis aside, there was a lot going on to keep me reasonably entertained. I’m sure a director’s commentary, where every little detail is revealed, would be really interesting to watch.

Picks up right where the first movie left off with the family battling Cliff Clavin. Every bit as fun as the original but a little too long and thematically not quite as strong. Pixar animation no longer excites the way it used to.

I can see why, in this time of everyone and their grandma being a cos-player, that this is a cult favorite. It’s a stylish, incredible looking movie filled with wonderful new wave fashion. Beyond the slick surface is it’s terrible editing, a stupid plot and a bit too many rape scenes for my tastes.