Re/Member – (Remember Member) (2022) Movie Review - What Has J-Horror Come To?
Welcome to Knockout Horror. We are kicking the week of with a review of brand new horror movie. Today we will be taking a look at Netflix J-Horror Remember Member. I believe this movie is also known as Re/Member which is a pretty awful name. Let’s be real, that’s pretty common with J-horror and anime. The names never hold up very well to translation. That isn’t the only thing about Remember Member that sucks, though. The movie does, as well.
Make no mistake here, I am a huge fan of Japanese horror. At one point, it was pretty much the only horror my partner and I would watch. It has waned in recent years and the wave of fantastic J-horror has long since headed back out to sea. While this is disappointing for fans of the genre, if it returning means that we are subject to movies like Re/Member, I hope it stays far away from the shore.
Re/Member…. Or don’t
Re/Member follows the story of six high school children. Each of them falls asleep only to wake up at midnight in their school. Confused, the group have no time to figure out what is happening as a strange entity begins pursuing them through the school. The group are killed off in gruesome ways, one by one. The next morning, the murdered students wake up, the day has not progressed, everything at school is the same. Meeting up in the hallway. They all come to the conclusion that they must solve the mystery of the dream world. If not, time will be stuck looping continuously.
So as you can probably guess from the above synopsis. This is a time loop movie ala Groundhog Day. I have always thought the Groundhog Day phenomenon was closer to horror than drama. I mean, how horrific would it be to repeat the same day for years? Estimates have Bill Murray repeating that one day for over 33 years in Groundhog Day. Crazy stuff. Now imagine if every single one of those days featured a painful death; it would be pure torture. It is a great basis for a horror movie, except when it isn’t.
Time Loop Horror
Happy Death Day did a fantastic job with this concept. It worked as both a comedy and a horror movie. Tree accumulates injuries over time which means she could eventually die, ending the cycle completely. Re/Member, basically, does the same thing only with far lower stakes. Each night the kids are murdered, each day they wake up fresh and relaxed with no injuries. The events are completely lacking in consequence. Good luck becoming invested in the horror element here.
Trips to the beach and anime style comedy interactions undermine the tension. The kids here are having a thoroughly good time. This is, basically, a video game complete with unlimited lives. A rogue-like if you will. There is absolutely no reason to become invested in their struggles. There are more consequences driving to the store than these kids face in the dream world. This really only speaks to some of the issues here, though.
Re/Member is not at all a traditional J-horror. This is J-horror for the Netflix and Crunchy Roll generation. The days of Audition and Noroi: The Curse feel so very long ago. Instead, this movie is targeting a new crowd and going for the whole “live action anime” thing. I get it, this Remember Member is based on a Manga and Anime known as Karadasagashi after all. Still, the style becomes a big problem very early on. From the camera cuts to the way the group interact. Re/Member takes everything that works in anime and proves that it doesn’t really work in a real life setting. For all the over-the-top anime style live action stuff that Japan kinda gets right. The Machine Girl, Tokyo Gore Police, Ichi The Killer et al. Re/Member is an example of how spectacularly this approach can fail.
Anime Style Live Action Horror
Split shots abound. People move into frame comically in a manner stripped straight from a Shōnen anime. Characters have exaggerated expressions, the camera zooms and obsesses on trivial details and the whole thing feels painfully corny. It simply doesn’t work and there are so many examples of it failing to deliver.
The bookish Shôta jumping on a desk in the library to shout effusively made my eyes roll. It reminded me of “Prison School” only not funny and a bit painful to watch. Scrunched up facial expressions, that are comical in animation, look uncomfortable in real life. Action sequences fall foul of similar issues. Slow moving humans looks cumbersome jumping over tables. Quick camera cuts to add flair feel redundant and simply don’t work.
The way the characters speak bears mention, as well, this is Japanese for white people. There is an emphasis on slang, slow speech patterns and an anime style delivery. I have watched hundreds of J-horror movies, many featuring school age casts. Yet I have never heard the word “Baka” shouted with so much inflection. It is done repeatedly here. It is as if whoever commissioned the movie pointed to K-On! and said “that but horror, please”. This speaks to another issue with Re/Member. The horror steps aside continually to give way to boring slice of life stuff that is hideously prominent in anime but a poor fit for this particular genre. The anime leanings become a huge ball and chain for this movie.
Tons of Issues and an Awful Monster Design
With the above being said, this movie will, obviously, appeal to certain people. Anime fans who don’t mind repetitive Shonen style content will probably enjoy it. People who enjoy anime and aren’t big horror fans may find something to like. It is tropey enough to feel familiar if you are a fan of that kind of stuff. This isn’t Darker than Black or Monster, though. Remember Member is far closer to the worst Shonen action anime you can think of.
Stepping aside from the similarities with anime. We encounter a whole bunch of issues with Re/Member simply as a horror movie. Pacing is a huge issue; this is an incredibly slow movie. Once the kids work out what they have to do. It becomes scene after scene of predictable and repetitive copy and paste content. The backstory is far more interesting than what is happening in the present. The backstory is barely leaned into, though. Horror movie tropes are a big problem and badly overused as are the ridiculously dumb characters. There are no new ideas here, at all.
The creature design here is horrendous. Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop could make a better monster with the hair shed from Miss Piggy’s arse. It is so laughably bad. I know silly looking puppetry is something Japan has done for years. But this doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like a slightly silly looking Kaiju. It feels like the filmmakers ran out of money. Went into the broom closet and glued something together out of old coats. The way the monster moves is hilarious. It is clearly just being swung around by a human operator. It couldn’t look worse. This speaks to a bigger issue with the film, everything just feels a bit cheap and a bit low effort.
Acting is…. Okay?
Acting is okay, I suppose. Literally every single character in Re/Member plays like an anime trope. This really undermines each and every performance. Gravity is stripped from every scene by the actor’s requirement to play to type. Kanna Hashimoto is okay as Asuka. What are you supposed to be able to say about her performance, though? She has one moment that hints at character depth. The rest of the time she is playing a quiet, shy, anime girl. Gordon Maeda, as Takahiro, and Fûju Kamio, as Atsushi, basically play the same character. They are sporty and like basketball. One just happens to be a bit more aloof and more troubled than the other.
Mayu Yokota, as Rie, is the well liked and sensible class president type. She is… okay, I guess? Maika Yamamoto, as Rumiko, is the popular girl with the older boyfriend. The Rise Kujikawa, from Persona 4, if you will. She does… fine? Kotarô Daigo, as Shôta, is the nerdy kid with a hidden eccentric personality. He really gives it his all, to be fair, but I hated the character trope
One thing of note is that, literally, every actor here looked older than their intended age. That was a bit strange. Scenes where makeup wears off stand out. The camera reveals the slightly drawn faces of actors in their twenties. Still, that is the least of Re/Member’s problems. It is a painfully boring J-horror with an anime leaning and a terribly designed monster. What more could you want?
Should You Watch Remember Member?
No, you shouldn’t waste your time watching Remember Member, it is one of the worst J-Horror movies I have ever watched. It is desperately attempting to channel the energy and style of anime but the result is a movie that feels like it will only appeal to very young people and people who will watch literally anything Japanese. Only those with a tolerance for boring slice of life bullshit, tedious and repetitive horror, and underdeveloped characters will find anything to like here. Re/Member is slow, the anime style presentation and character interactions feel awkward, and the story repeats itself, ad nauseam. Just skip it and watch an actually decent Japanese horror movie.
