Cast: Ryu Ichinose, Ryoka Oshima, Akito Fujii, Yukino Kaizu
Genre: Horror / Body Horror / Dark Comedy
TL;DR - Incomplete Chairs is a pretty messed-up Japanese horror film with some seriously gruesome moments and a bizarre idea at its center, but it does start to feel a little repetitive as it goes along.
Plot
An obsessive chairmaker becomes determined to create the perfect piece of furniture, using human bones and skin to bring his increasingly disturbing designs to life, but his work attracts the attention of a buyer who starts asking questions about where his materials are coming from.
A Very Strange Idea for a Horror Film
There's certainly no shortage of strange ideas in Japanese horror, but Incomplete Chairs has come up with something that's pretty hard to ignore - Shinsuke Kujo is a chairmaker who becomes obsessed with creating the perfect chair, and rather than settling for the usual wood and other materials, he decides that human bones and skin are what he really needs to get the job done.
It's a ridiculous idea, of course it is, obviously, but that's also part of the appeal. I mean, we've seen plenty of serial killers doing horrible things to people in horror films, but turning their remains into furniture is a bit different, and director Kenichi Ugana seems quite happy to take this idea as far as he can.
There's also something quite funny about how seriously Kujo takes his work. He's not just some bloke who enjoys killing people, because in his mind, he's an artist trying to achieve something special, and the fact that his creative process involves murdering people and dismantling their bodies doesn't seem to bother him all that much.
I liked the general idea behind this, particularly because there was also room to poke fun at the obsession with expensive designer products and the people who convince themselves that something is worth buying simply because it's supposed to be special. The film has a few things to say about the pursuit of perfection, although I do think the premise is probably more interesting than some of the ways it is all explored.
The Gore
If you're coming to Incomplete Chairs looking for something a bit gruesome, you're certainly not going to be disappointed by the general direction this takes - there's plenty of blood, some pretty nasty body horror and a number of scenes that you probably won't want to watch when eating. The practical effects in particular are excellent at times, with the film putting considerable attention into the horrible details of what Kujo is doing to his victims.
There's a dark little streak of humor running through everything as well, because his approach to making furniture is so completely out of proportion with what he's actually doing, but I did find that there's a limit to how much enjoyment I got out of watching somebody do increasingly horrible things to human bodies.
I think the film will work best for people who enjoy their horror on the more extreme side, because anybody hoping for a few creepy moments and some relatively restrained violence might find this all a bit much.
Ryu Ichinose Makes Kujo an Interesting Character
Ryu Ichinose plays Shinsuke Kujo, and there's something quite unsettling about watching somebody become so consumed by an idea that they stop seeing other people as people, which is a completely different kind of horror.
The film also gets some mileage out of the contrast between Kujo's horrific methods and the rather ordinary world of furniture buying and selling - his work attracts Natsuko Kato, played by Ryoka Oshima, who becomes interested in his chairs, while her colleague Masaki Uchida, played by Akito Fujii, starts questioning what is really going on.
The characters and their relationships could have been developed a little more though to add something extra, because the central idea is so outlandish that there's a danger of everything else becoming secondary to the next gruesome scene, and at times that's exactly what happens.
The Dark Comedy Works Better Than You Might Expect
Incomplete Chairs also isn't a film that plays everything completely straight either, as there's a darkly comic side to the story, particularly in the way Kujo approaches his work, and the film seems fully aware of that.
It's not exactly the sort of horror comedy where you're constantly laughing, but there are moments when the sheer madness of what's happening gives the violence an almost absurd quality - think The Coffee Table, if you have watched that.
I also think the film works better when it uses its central idea to make fun of artistic pretension and the obsession with creating something supposedly unique - Kujo's determination to make the perfect chair becomes increasingly ridiculous when you consider what he's doing to achieve it, and that contrast gives the story a bit more substance.
While I did like a lot about this film, I also think that the central idea can only take the film so far, as the first time you see what Kujo is doing, there's a certain shock value to it, and the whole business of turning human remains into furniture is certainly memorable.
As the film goes on, though, the novelty starts to wear off a little. There's only so much mileage you can get out of watching Kujo pursue his gruesome craft before the story needs to give you something else to get invested in.
At around 85 minutes, it isn't an especially long film either, so this isn't a case of something dragging on for two hours when it should have been over much sooner. Even so, I think the idea might have worked better with a little more variation in how the horror and comedy were handled.
Final Verdict
Incomplete Chairs is a pretty bizarre Japanese body-horror film that deserves some credit for coming up with an idea that's difficult to forget. The problem is that the novelty starts to wear off, and some of the more repetitive scenes stop having quite the same impact.
It's certainly not going to be for everyone, and anyone who isn't keen on graphic body horror should probably give it a miss. But if you enjoy unusual Japanese horror films that are happy to get bloody and a bit ridiculous, it is worth a look for sure.