St. John's Wort (2003), DVD

by Marc Wiener

Japanese director Shimoyama Ten's St. John's Wort is an interesting experiment in co-opting video game language to film. That is not to say that the film adopts the flash and mindless excess of the videogame to be an onscreen action fest. Nor do I mean to infer that the film takes its plot literally from a specific game such as Resident Evil or Mortal Kombat. Rather, it uses the semiotics and language that have become apparent in survival horror video games and translates them to film. This is an odd sort of turn about to the self-reflecting irony that the horror genre developed with the Scream films. It is also an interesting case of the snake eating its tail. Resident Evil, the game, began as an homage to George Romero's dead films. In doing so it took a lot of the common elements of the zombie survival genre and translated it to the video game medium. The translation however introduced some of its own noticeable trademarks that have become a staple of that genre of games. St. John's Wort now takes those tropes and translates them to film. Are you getting dizzy yet?

St. John's Wort is shot on Digital video, and makes excellent use of the digital medium. The colors are tampered with and adjusted in almost every shot to create surreal, painterly environments. Also, in the first portion of the film, one of the characters is using a camcorder so there are many DV point of view shots that make effective use of the medium. Also used well is the notion of surveillance and web cam shots, similarly used to great effect in Marc Evans outstanding British film My Little Eye (as well as to much, much less success in the most recent Halloween sequel). The DV medium gives the shots an authentic look. The camera also tends to cut back to high, revealing shots looking down on the room the characters find themselves in, perhaps revealing some detail or clue if we examine the frame closely enough. This is one of those game views that are found repeatedly in games of this genre. Also when an important item or clue is located we often see flashes of the related scene that came earlier. For example, after our leads find an important key, we flash back to an earlier shown scene of them attempting to open a locked door. This is often a clue in games of this sort that you have found an important quest item. There are even some moments early on where we see character dialogue appearing in text boxes as is often seen in video games as well.

The plot of the film concerns Nami and her ex-boyfriend, Kohei, who is a video game designer. Nami has recently inherited her father's old mansion and the two are heading there to see what secrets about Nami's unknown past it will reveal as well as to stir up inspiration for video game concepts. It is not long before they are exploring the house, room by room, searching for clues in scenes that greatly remind you of exploring the mansion in the beginning of the first Resident Evil game. However, the film is constantly jumping between P.O.V shots, split screen cam footage, and colorized stylized takes. It keeps the viewer engrossed and on their toes through the slow, suspenseful build. There are often tense moments where you expect the worse, and yet there really is nothing around that dark corner.

Slowly we learn that Nami had a twin sister, and that her father has kept secrets hidden in the house. Dark secrets that begin to seep through the cracks. Where did Nami's father find the inspiration for the strange paintings he has painted and displayed around the house? And who is it that is creeping around the mansion, spying and setting up cameras. Is it the caretaker or a more malevolent entity? Kohei sends his video footage back to the computers at his office, and his co-workers, using the footage to map out the house for use in a game, notice that the floor layout reveals hidden rooms (another video game cliché). Who or what is hidden there?

I will say that the style and concept is stronger than the actual payoff. There are certainly questionable motives throughout the film. At times the reasoning for our characters to stay in the house seem shallow and forced. There are also times when the film's ambition seems to lay outside the constraints of its budget. The conclusion, although somewhat satisfying, never truly ratchets the tension up to the required level. Somehow, none of these problems really hurt my enjoyment of the film. With the Region 3 DVD I watched, the film sporting an excellent DTS track with superb sound differentiation, I often found myself peeking around in my living room. The film succeeds on providing a good dose of the creeps. If you want to see an interesting take on the genre with some good suspense, ambitious and heaps of creepy atmosphere, you can definitely do worse than St. John's Wort.

--released on the Great Hoboes of New York in May, 2004