Watcher in the Attic is Sexy and Utterly Bizarre
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Watcher in the Attic is a deeply disturbing take on an old Japanese short story. It's not perfect but is creepy, bizarre, and will stick with you long after a viewing.
Written by James "Crypticpsych" Lasome
March 5, 2011
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Release: July 7, 2007 (Japan)
Directed by: Mitsuhiro Mihara
Written by: Edogawa Rampo (short story), Kishû Izuchi (screenplay)
Starring:
Yôko Kamon as Naoko Tomioka
Momoko Shimizu as Madoka
Shunsuke Kubozuka as Sakurai
Jin Muraki as Mr. Yamane
Ryoko Yuui as Mrs. Akutsu
Naoko (Kamon), a kindly reporter, is heading out into the country to visit the house where a macabre artist named Gouda once lived. She runs into one of the current residents of the estate, Sakurai (Kubozuka), and goes with him to her destination. Once there, she meets up with the friendly owner, Mr. Yamane (Muraki), who agrees to answer questions about Gouda and allows her to stay in his old room. At that night's dinner, she meets up with the three other tenants, The Akutsus and their little girl Madoka (Shimizu in a great sympathetic yet creepy performance). The Akutsus are spiritual mediums who hold séances for paying customers, the spirit temporarily possessing Madoka.
Naoko is initially excited as she's begged for this assignment since quickly becoming obsessed with Gouda's work. However, her first night, she experiences a strange, erotic dream that leaves physical evidence on her neck the next morning. That day, as she explores the grounds, she finds Madoka who tells her that Gouda used to enjoy sneaking around the attic. Naoko soon follows his lead and ends up seeing far more than she should. Through cracks in the attic floor, she can spy on the other tenants, seeing their transgressions, fetishes, and darkest secrets. When she finds a bound, naked, bloodied woman though, she finds out something darker is at play within these walls… something that was reflected in Gouda's own mysterious dark artwork. Something she may fall victim to herself if she isn't careful.
One of many films based loosely on the story of the same name by noted early 20th Century Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo (a pen name playing off the phonetic pronunciation of influence Edgar Allan Poe), Watcher in the Attic (aka Yaneura no sanposha) is easily one of the more effective films I've seen at blending the erotic and the macabre into a deeply twisted cohesive whole. The key to a film like this is to have a story that interests the viewer (writer researching dead artist) as a backbone. The director can then graft whatever twisted visual or sexual imagery their heart desires (the creepy tenants, the general feeling of eeriness and unease, and deeply twisted sex) onto it and create something truly special when finished.
In terms of feel, the slow burn of Watcher in the Attic helps to create a palpable sense of unease. Plot elements start simple and slowly get more and more disturbing. In the beginning, fear comes from moments like Mrs. Akutsu's (an excellent Yuui) violent mood shifts or from the sense the viewer gets of intrusion and of being a voyeur into the cause of Naoko's erotic dream and the dream itself. As Naoko becomes the voyeur herself and finds the other horrors in the house, we find them too through her eyes as the voyeur, seeing restricted images of secrets through the cracks in the floorboards of the attic. It all builds to the movie's crowning tableaus of "what the hell" that I will not spoil but that I will say have left me physically incapable of ever thinking of clowns, caterpillars, or "Habanera" from the opera Carmen the same way ever 
again. Anything that happens in the dark, red-curtained locked room these scenes take place in burns itself into the viewers' minds by simultaneously capturing some small degree of twisted eroticism alongside SERIOUSLY screwed-up fetishism. It's possibly to understand someone finding the film arousing on some level… and also to see quite clearly exactly how wrong that person would be and feel for doing so.
Watcher in the Attic does have problems, though. First, Naoko seems WAY too eager in this film to the point of being almost cloyingly annoying with her smiley, super-sweet personality for much of the first portion of the movie. Secondly, while Watcher in the Attic is a slow-burn, it doesn't excuse just how much the film drags in the early going. Perhaps most glaringly though, this film suffers from a syndrome similar to that I pointed out in Love Goddess of the Cannibals: that of the idiot protagonist. Naoko is SHOCKED by the identity of one fetishist even though she SAW the poorly disguised person in action earlier on! She also misses clear opportunities to get the heck out of the house when things start to get freaky (in more ways than one), and is entirely too trusting of people who, for the most part, act way too suspiciously throughout the entire film. I should be clear though, this film OVERCOMES this stupidity (unlike the aforementioned film) because the rest of the film is legitimately disturbing and bizarre.
Overall, Watcher in the Attic is a deeply disturbing blend of twisted sex and horror. It overcomes a somewhat weak, stupid female lead by having effectively creepy supporting performances, progressively more disturbing visuals, and seriously bizarre fetishistic horrors. While it can VERY EASILY be too weird and bizarre for some, if you can handle a viewing of this twisted piece of madness, it will probably stick with you for a long time.
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