Page 126 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

A Murder of Doves 113

surreptitiously sleeping with Riei. On the evening of the party, Tetsuya
attempts to ask her out, but he ends up humiliating himself when he
vomits on her instead. Kensuke has even worse luck. After meeting a
woman he believes to be little more than a prostitute, on the night of the
party he, too, is humiliated when the woman chains him to a fence outside
of a factory, kicks his crotch repeatedly, pours a bottle of cheap
champagne over his head, and leaves him stranded and with his pants at
his knees. Lastly, Shinji sabotages a young woman’s (Yôko’s) bicycle,
comes to her ‘rescue’, and they strike up a close friendship complete with
stolen kisses backed by a syrupy pop soundtrack. On the night of the
party, however, they are jumped by a gang that Shinji once watched set
fire to a small animal. This gang beats Shinji, holds him down, and forces
him to watch as they continuously rape and batter Yôko. Thirsty for
revenge and eager to rebuild their decimated senses of masculinity,
Shinji, Kensuke, and Tetsuya arm themselves with a rifle and attack the
group of thugs at the thugs’ hideout. A bloodbath inevitably ensues, from
which only the once docile Tetsuya emerges, psychologically transformed
into a ruthless killing machine.

All Night Long 2: Atrocity (1994): The second film in Matsumura
Katsuya’s dire series bears some striking resemblances to the first.
Consider, for example, the main protagonist’s character arc; an
introverted otaku obsessed with building models of overtly sexualised
female manga characters, Shinichi transforms into a vengeful murderer
bent on killing the ruthless rapist bullies whose leader, a wealthy, brutal,
and charismatic homosexual, clearly has designs on seducing Shinichi.
When Shinichi recruits several ‘friends’ from the internet to help him
defeat this vicious gang of thugs, the film’s action quickly spirals into a
gore-drenched finale destined to test the collective fortitudes of even the
most die-hard horror aficionados. Perhaps the best crafted film in the
series, All Night Long 2: Atrocity further addresses the themes of ijime,
masculinity, and violence raised in 1992’s All Night Long.

All Night Long 3: Atrocities (1996): Sawada Kikuo, a painfully shy
employee at a seedy love hotel, spends his days cleaning up used