Imprint Year: 2006 Director: Takashi Miike Written by: Daisuke Tengan Threat: Demon Weapon of Choice: Needles Based upon: novel -- Bokkey Kyotei -- Shimako Iwai Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: USA IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Please see the Masters of Horror series page.

Rish's Reviews
Imprint.
Imprint.
Imprint.
When this film finally came to an end (all sixty-three minutes of it), my good friend tyranist turned to me and said, “What the fuck, man?”
And that really says it all. Imprint, folks, was vile. It was banned from Showtime television for a reason.* You know, I thought I had a high tolerance for this stuff. Only a tiny handful of films have truly turned my stomach.
Let’s make that a handful plus one.
The storyline sure sounded promising: a haunted and grizzled American travels to an island of prostitution looking for the Japanese girl he knew years before and promised to come back for. What he finds is, well, another prostitute who knows the truth of what happened to her.
Dang, it still sounds like a good movie.
And I guess is was, if you like extended scenes of unflinching human depravity, executed in such visceral, realistic detail that . . . well, I'm at a loss to explain how they did it.
And that's not all. The confusing, contradictory story seems almost designed not to entertain. Sprawling, rambling, nonsensical and overacted (I’ve seen more subtle acting at sock puppet shows), I would certainly have preferred if this had been shot in Japanese instead of English, ‘cause I could at least chalk it up to the language barrier. But no, it's all in English. Or at least "Ingrish," and I certainly can't make excuses for Billy Drago.
This film was just wrong, boys and girls. Audition director Takashi Miike has managed a singular feat here, bypassing the horrors of that film by about a parsec. How do I quantify something like Imprint? You ever see that scene in John Waters’s Pink Flamingos . . . you know, the one that makes the movie famous? Or perhaps I should I say, infamous? Now imagine a full hour of scenes—tied together by a mere vestige of story—attempting to out-do that moment. There's Imprint for you.
A few months back, after Saw II and Hostel turned out to be such hits in 2005 and ’06, I started to hear the term “torture porn” bandied about by critics in reference to movies like this. Because pornography is seen in such a negative light throughout nearly all of North America, the term was a clever, if underhanded way, of condemning these kinds of movies (Texas Chainsaw: The Beginning and Turistas have also been placed in this category) and the people who pay to see them.
But no, Hostel is not torture porn. If there is such a thing (outside of sleazy hardcore fetish videos), it is Imprint. And that’s not meant to be a compliment.
Sure, there are probably some people out there who would thrill to a movie this grim and sadistically brutal. But they’re the same audience who could sit through Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible more than once.
I'd Recommend It To: No one comes to mind. And for that, I'm grateful.
*If you didn't hear, it was the only installment of "Masters of Horror" that didn't make it to the air. The network just felt it was too shocking and too revolting, even for a network that aired the softcore "Red Shoe Diaries," and the ultra-graphic other films in the "Masters of Horror" series.
Posted: February 12, 2007

The tyranist's thoughts
Ick.
I can't think of a single redeeming thing about this movie. There are half a dozen different story choices that would have made the movie a) much more watchable and b) more lyrically complete. Instead, they chose to just make us suffer nearly as much as the characters in the story.
And then then they turned the whole thing on its ear several times just to make sure that there was no possible way we could get out of the movie thinking we'd seen something we understood.
The acting was adequate, I guess. The effects were effective. But in the end it all added up to something I'd really rather not see ever again.
Most of the time, the movies that make me turn away are super-realistic and treat violence casually and as a part of the normal life. This does neither and yet managed to surpass my tolerance thresholds very quickly.
Don't see it. Not even if you love the Masters of Horror series. It isn't worth it.
Posted: February 12, 2007

Total Skulls: 22

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?