New Religion is a cloying, intense film. It’s funny, because for much of the runtime, this crowdfunded horror film from first-time director Keishi Kondo is just that – all atmosphere and seediness without too much by way of complexity. What it does have, though, is a final act that toys with the concepts of humanity, the rinse-repeat nature of life, and existence as a paradox. It’s weird, thought-provoking, and worth the wait.
The film starts in obscure fashion, with a reel of not-quite-human shots of moths, human flesh, and strange, inexplicable contortions. Then we meet Miyabi (Kaho Seto), a grieving mother who has started working as a call girl to fill the gap left by her daughter’s death. It’s an Anora-style tag-along as we see her daily life in the job, until a mysterious vocoder-using client (Satoshi Oka) who doesn’t want anything other than to take pictures of her. What follows is a gradual descent into madness and instability as Miyabi suffers traumatic visions and a loss of grip on reality.
It’s a film best serviced by its visuals and atmosphere than its story. While it’s initially quite interesting to see the machinations of sex work in Japanese culture – something that doesn’t come up nearly as often as it does in Western cinema – New Religion really finds its feet in its latter half.
That’s when Kondo’s directorial flair bursts to life: the client’s apartment is dripping with lurid, seedy reds and the music kicks into another gear with shrill, overbearing strings. The whole film is ethereal and slightly uncanny, but it’s only once Kondo lays his thesis down that the atmosphere feels earned.
It’s hard not to see some Blue Velvet influence here, with David Lynch’s suburban horror film clearly influencing New Religion‘s depiction of slight but threatening male antagonists and the dangers lurking beneath banal life. New Religion isn’t scary per se, but certainly uncomfortable, even if some of its more commonplace ideas, such as grief, have been handled better elsewhere (see: The Babadook).
That said, there’s a really strong final act that mirrors Miyabi’s descent into madness deftly. Kondo works in interesting metaphors about the reflexivity of human life and the paradoxes of existence, told in a way that’s trippy, weird, and communicated through its visuals rather than exposition. If you push through a first act that’s slightly more trite, you’ll be richly rewarded come the end.
New Religion doesn’t necessarily break new ground as a psychological horror film, but its gripping final act and powerful themes are worth sticking around for. It’s weird, partly Lynchian, and unsettling in a way that most Western horror isn’t.
★★★½
New Religion is out now on DVD and Blu-ray from Third Window Films.
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