Terror Transmission

Director Takashi Miike is, often enough, a bit of a hit or miss with his films. But, I’m going to go out on a limb with this one and say that it hits far more than it misses. That is to say that it is a gradual but definitely full-blown smack to your decency and moral sensibilities. Have neither of those? Great, then let’s begin…

Visitor Q centers around what could easily be called a dysfunctional family, and then some. The young daughter, a teen prostitute, is having (paid) sex with her father. The mother is also hooking but has the additional burden of a heroin habit and being the random punching bag for her young son who, himself, is being regularly beaten by bullies. The father of this model family is a failed television producer who gets the idea of videotaping his screwed up brood for a reality TV show pitch. However, this subplot is a mere backdrop to the main story, especially when Visitor Q arrives in their lives, large rock in hand, and turns these four individuals utterly upside-down.

The black humor dial is truly turned to 11 as the family engages in all sorts of wholesome (and surreal) activities such as thrill killing, necrophilia, random dodging of incoming fireworks, severe lactation, belt flogging, group suckling, extricating penis from dead body with tub-full of cooking oil, and more. The whirlwind of taboo-smashing behavior, laced with some incredibly funny dialogue (“This isn’t a mystery of life! It’s a shit!”), is enough to make one wonder: Does Visitor Q come to destroy the family or to help it… or both?

By no means is this movie for anyone who is easily offended or who lacks a dark sense of humor. For the rest of us, though, Visitor Q serves up the Japanese WTF on a silver platter and will probably make viewers think that their own relatives are, comparatively speaking, pretty sane folks. It’s shot on video but don’t let that deter you. Many “films” are shot on the format these days in the Land of the Rising Sun, but in this presentation, it works well. It’s also possible that Miike is giving a wink and nod to Pasolini on this one, but in his own charmingly disjointed way. Solid rent with a possible buy.