Time: 112 Minutes
Cast:
Kōji Yakusho as Kenichi Takabe
Masato Hagiwara as Kunio Mamiya
Tsuyoshi Ujiki as Shin Sakuma
Anna Nakagawa as Fumie Takabe
Yoriko Dōguchi as Dr. Akiko Miyajima
Yukijirō Hotaru as Ichiro Kuwano
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A wave of gruesome murders is sweeping Tokyo. The only connection is a bloody X carved into the neck of each of the victims. In each case, the murderer is found near the victim and remembers nothing of the crime. Detective Takabe and psychologist Sakuma are called in to figure out the connection, but their investigation goes nowhere…

I had previously heard of Cure, it was a Japanese horror movie that some people said was great. Still, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it was.

Cure is best described as a serial killer film with horror elements, comparable to the likes of Se7en and Silence of the Lambs. While its debatable as to whether they are in that genre, there’s enough aspects in Cure to place it firmly in the horror genre. The story is engrossing and grim; it initially sets itself up as a police procedural focussing on a murder mystery, and slowly becomes a descent into madness. Part of what made the movie feel so unsettling is that much of the story feels very realistic and plausible. It’s also an unpredictable story and you’re not certain about what’s going on. Something always feels off, with an atmosphere of dread and unease throughout.  

Koji Yakusho gives a very grounded performance as the lead detective, who was himself an interesting main character to follow. Masato Hagiwara is also really good as the villain. The fact that he’s the antagonist isn’t really a spoiler since it’s revealed early on, but he has quite the unnerving screen presence, helped by his very subdued performance.  

This is the first movie that I’ve watched from Kiyoshi Kurosawa and his direction is great. The cinematography is strong and effective; the fixed long shots, subtle moving shots and memorable visuals helped add to the unnerving feeling. The environments and sets felt pretty real, almost mundane (like police interview rooms), but this made it feel more set in reality, and as such even helped make the movie even more unsettling. Add on top of that the haunting sound design, and Kurosawa really creates this tense and overbearing atmosphere which grows over the course of the movie.

Cure is an atmospheric, tense, and uneasy psychological horror thriller, incredibly directed and performed.