Carved (The Slit Mouthed Woman) 'Kuchisake-onna' (2007) (US Import) reviewed by Yags Antunes

Introduction

Based on a Japanese urban legend about the Kuchisake-onna (slit-mouthed woman), a beautiful woman whose face is disfigured, her mouth slit from ear to ear. The legend declares that the Kuchisake-onna wears a surgical mask and approaches young children/college students, asking "Do you think I'm beautiful?". If they reply "yes" she tears off the mask and reveals her face asking "Even like this?". When they say "no", she kills them.


Since the mid 90s, there have been some interesting, effective and genuinely disturbing Japanese horror (or J-Horror, as it is often referred to) films produced. Such examples include, The Ring (1998), Audition (1999), Pulse (2001), Dark Water (2002), One Missed Call (2003), Infection (2004) and The Curse (2005), to name but a handful.

Followers of Asian horror cinema, in particular J-Horror film, will no doubt be familiar with certain thematic and stylistic elements that characterize the aforementioned films. These could be hostile ghosts or poltergeists, cursed technology (video, cellphones, computers etc), derelict and disused buildings, decomposed corpses, mouldy reading material, eerie sound design and sinister cinematography. 


Carved draws on some of these components in order to essentially tell a disturbing story about child abuse and the power of the Kuchisake-onna urban legend. Whilst the film is generally harrowing, shocking in parts and quite effectively atmospheric, some of the acting on display is mediocre and the film, in my opinion, also suffers somewhat from a deficiency of genuine scares. Moreover, I could not help but feel that director Koji Shiraishi could have, perhaps, done more to make the film resonate the power of the Kuchisake-onna legend more effectively. Nonetheless, especially given the film's low budget, Carved is savage and quite unsettling, and overall a satisfactory J-Horror production, perhaps enough to appease fans of the genre.

Video

Carved is presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The transfer quality is nothing to boast about, and the image often suffers from a lack of detail, especially during scenes featuring low-lighting. Overall, the picture quality is adequate and one cannot complain too much, as Carved was shot on a low budget.

Audio

The DVD features three audio tracks to select from: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, DTS 5.1 Surround Sound, and a Japanese 2.0 Dolby Digital track. The 5.1 Dolby Digital track with English subtitles is generally crisp and clear, and evidently there is a good balance between the Japanese dialogue and the film's musical score. On the contrary, there is a noticeable lack of punch in the 5.1 mix.

Overall

Whilst Carved could, perhaps, have been a more effective psychological horror film, with better quality acting or more scares and heightened tension for example, it is still an above average production that should satisfy J-Horror followers and fans of horror film in general.