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Cure (1997)

Cure (1997)

A series of mysterious murders leads a detective to a former psychological student

The Very Best

9.2

Movie

Japan
Japanese
Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery
1997
KIYOSHI KUROSAWA
Akira Otaka, Anna Nakagawa, Denden
111 min

What it's about

A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.

The take

Cure is about a mad society, where both cure and sickness might be one and the same. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa subverts the police procedural into an interrogation without definite answers, an abstract study on the evil that resides and is suppressed in every person’s heart. Unlike most horror films, Cure’s scares are left in plain sight, hypnotically mesmerizing as they are gruesome, with a sense of mundanity associated with other Japanese masters like Ozu or Kore-eda. “At the time it just seemed the right thing to do,” a man answers when asked why he killed his wife, and it is this contradictorily calm, nonchalant demeanor that creates a feeling of unease in the film’s horror aesthetic.

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