Format: Blu-ray from Sandwich Public Library through interlibrary loan on rockin’ flatscreen.
The story begins in the middle of a series of bizarre murders being investigated by Kenichi Takabe (Kōji Yakusho). Each of the crimes on the surface appear to be completely unrelated. They all have different perpetrators, so it’s difficult to call them part of the work of a serial killer. However, the crimes are very clearly related because they occur in very specific ways that are identical.
Specifically, in every case, the murders are violent and the perpetrators are always captured very close to the scene of the crime. They admit to the crime and admit also that they have no clear motives or reasons for their crimes. More disturbing is that in each case, the victims are found with a large X carved into their neck or chest, often carved post-mortem. The cause of death might be a bullet to the head, but the X is always carved into the victim.
For much of the first part of the film, this is the pattern that we are going to see. A random person is approached by an unknown man named Kunihiko Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) who appears to be suffering from short-term memory loss and knows nothing of his own past. Shortly after that meeting, the person will commit a murder, carving an X into the chest and being caught and then interrogated by Takabe and his colleague Shin Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki), a forensic psychologist. Slowly the two start to piece together what is happening, although in each case, none of the killers have a clear reason for their crimes or even a great deal of memory of why they might have committed them. We’re also going to learn that Takabe’s wife Fumie (Anna Nakagawa) has severe issues that look a great deal like schizophrenia.
The investigation into Mamiya reveals that in his past, he was a psychology student and someone who was very interested in hypnosis, leading Takabe and Sakuma to believe that somehow he is hypnotizing the murders and causing them to kill their victims using his particular modus operandi. We’re going to see Mamiya talk to some of his victims, and this does seem to be what is happening. Mamiya talks calmly to his victims, gets them to tell him about themselves, and essentially commands them to commit the crimes that they eventually do. It all happens with a disturbing sense of calm. These are not crimes of passion that we see—they are cold and dispassionate.
This is exactly what makes Cure such an upsetting film. A serial killer is a terrifying concept and a terrifying reality. Someone who can compel others to kill is even more terrifying. But to have these murders occur so dispassionately is terrifying. We watch one of these happen when one man shoots another in the head completely unprompted and then prepares to disfigure the body.
This is the other part of this that is so upsetting. The mutilation of the bodies is grotesque. And this dichotomy is just as disturbing. The mutilations make these crimes appear as if they are of passion, but there is as much emotion in these killings as someone swatting a fly.
If there is an issue with Cure, it’s that the resolution is easy enough to follow, but why it happens isn’t that easy to figure out. There are a few paths that get us to the actual conclusion of the film that make sense, but it’s never really demonstrated how or why these things happen. Some sort of resolution feels necessary in the movie world, even if in our lives plenty of things happen that don’t actually come with a buttoned-up conclusion.
Cure is a disturbing watch, even if a lot of what happens is implied. There’s a moment or two of genuine body horror in one of the murders, where the marking of the corpse gets a lot more graphic than we otherwise see, but otherwise, the violence is generally implied. This is a solid police procedural that ultimately turns very dark, as if that’s ever a bad thing.
Why to watch Cure: Serial killer stories don’t get much creepier.
Why not to watch: This is one of those films you have to put a lot of effort into understanding.
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