MySpace Meets J-Horror in Hideo Nakata’s ‘Chatroom’

Posted by Rob Hunter (rob@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 5, 2008

Chat Room

Is there anything scarier than a social networking site’s chat room?  There is?  Well, don’t tell Hideo Nakata that. Per Variety, he’s just signed on to direct Chatroom, “a psychological thriller about teenagers who encourage each others destructive behavior.”  Presumably this encouragement will take place online which promises lots of suspenseful and angst-ridden scenes of teenagers typing.

Chatroom will be Nakata’s third English language feature, after Dark Water and The Ring 2.  It’s worth noting that both of those films sucked.  Before coming to America, Nakata was at the forefront of the J-Horror phenomenon helming films like Chaos and the original Ringu and Ringu 2.  WestEnd Films founder Eve Schoukroun says ”Nakata has come up with something very visual, very conceptual, and situated somewhere between Disturbia and Cube.”  Take that however you want, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Shia LaBeouf get sliced and diced with lasers.

The film is written by Enda Walsh from his own play, but it may be more than a little influenced by the recent headlines about cyber-bullying and suicide.  Nakata is a master of the logical inconsistency, and the idea of kids berating and baiting each other into desperate acts against themselves or others sounds pretty boring so color me uninterested.


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  • The opening scene will show a kid hung by his studded black leather belt in his bedroom, light from his computer monitor throwing a blurry shadow across the walls. And on the screen, an email from Tom, apologizing for a server crash that ultimately deleted the kid's mySpace account.

    The audience then sees Tom transform into a reptilian humanoid and dance to the Turtles "Happy Together." The end.
  • Reg
    Umm good imagination Trace but I would prefer something else. I disagree with Rob Hunter I enjoyed Dark water and Ring (not Ring 2) theyre weren't that bad. J-Horror remakes are good unless they are done correctly. I would like Hollywood do a take on Audition with a psycho japanese girl with an abusive past type of movie. I wouldn't mind that all.
  • The potential of technology to kill us or enslave us is scary. But I wonder if filmmakers are writing stories about really interesting topics. Chatroom sounds like it could be like Carrie updated for the 21st century. It might be a good movie. I have to learn more. An even greater idea would be a movie on text messaging or file-sharing. It's hilarious this was a stage play. Surely, it wasn't an hour and a half with teenagers sitting at their computers typing in an apartment set with the exterior walls cutaway.
  • Dark Water didn't suck. It wasn't great either. Color me mildly intrigued. I didn't get the connection between the ghost plot and the custody-battle plot. It felt like two movies in one--a horror movie and a melodrama.
  • Nish
    This sounds like a movie written by someone who has no understanding of kids or the internet, which suprises me as he is japanese. As in the internet part not necessarily the kid part.
  • The internet thing is obviously not a new concept -especially in Japanese film. I'm sure it'll play a more prominent role, but films like Noriko's Dinner Table and a few others have used the internet as a catalyst for suicide or murder fairly well. I'm not totally hyped about this premise or the usual logical inconsistencies that comes with Nakata's work, but it might have some promise.
  • Meha
    Nakata didn't direct the Dark Water English remake, he directed the original
    Japanese film. This would be his third English film if you're counting the upcoming
    Ring 3, which sounds pretty terrible honestly.
  • @ Meha, you are of course correct. I should have double checked! As penance I promise to watch Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers three more times.

    And yes, I realize Nakata didn't direct that film either.
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