Aragne no Mushikago is a one-man project, from the hands of Saku Sakamoto who created another movie serving as a prequel and is working on yet another that looks connected to it.
The main point of his movies is the existence of spirit bugs, and inhumane experiments. Sakamoto mixes reality with hallucination, uses symbolism and feelings of insecurity to trap not only his characters but also us in his own world.
The whole movie is practically CGI, and not good looking either. They went for sort of uncanny valley vibe, where the faces try to look like mix of human and animated.
The animation itself is very stiff, like when a character bugs and glitches.
They are using those glitches for scares too. Adding a mysterious music, shaking the camera, going in and out of focus. That is a cheap trick. Not to mention using predictable set ups for jump scares.
Worst part?
It works. Well. Most of the time it does.
There is no denying the suspense. Building on strangers sitting alone in the dark, old elevators in which camera is pointed towards the outside (where we see abandoned stroller)...
Some of the scares looks like death messages from Granny, and they are not pushed to their fullest. I wish they were bigger, had a sound, really covered the screen.
The biggest problem might be the laziness. Obviously our main hero meets a man who explains the whole bug problem to her. Randomly, in a school library. And he knows right away she sees the "spirit bugs" and talks to her about it.
That's... not how life works.
It would be better if they took a time during a proper interview or she at least spoke to someone online - which is definitely a more natural way of finding out about strange phenomena.
Laziness or maybe stupidity.
I mean, you're running away from a killer and you... enter someone's home? Doors open, no light, no questions. You just barge in there, lock the doors and walk around? Excuse me?
Really, the short time on which everything is trying to get explained does not suffice. We needed more time, needed more space, needed less confusion.
I feel like if you create a horror on urban legend, the legend needs to be explained. Slenderman - a tall man in suit with white face, that kills children. And then you throw us in the forest.
Meanwhile in this show, we need to figure out everything.
What is reality - what is Rin's mind. Who is real - who is an illusion. Where is she - what is she trying to do.
If we had more dialogue, if we knew who Rin or Nasuha are...!
[This on itself was pretty scary. I mean,,, what is that? It looks like those old old old PC games. You know, Harry Potter games for example.
It was horrendous...] If, if, if...
I do think as a live action it could work well. Adding a few minutes of content would be great. To explain everything to more detail in a form of dialogue. That way we would actually understand all of it. The symbols could be explained properly as well. This felt half-baked. But the idea and general concept are there. It just needs some shaping.
6/10