New Group
First screened and reviewed in October 2025
Director: Yûta Shimotsu. Cast: Anna Yamada, Yuzu Aoki, Pierre Taki. Screenplay: Yûta Shimotsu. In Brief:
From central image to odd props to spiky cutting to surreal tone, there's initially lots to savor. So where'd it all go?
VOR:②
Shimotsu certainly seems to have a distinctive imagination. If his stamina in telling a story or sustaining momentum can rise, he may get somewhere!
What if Weapons made more room for gymnastic formations but also stalled out around the midway point? This second feature for up-and-coming Japanese horror director Yûta Shimotsu has a welcome, loopy sense of humor and pulls off some memorable spectacles, some funny hyperboles of contemporary groupthink (don't piss off your gym teacher!!), and original devices for critiquing conformity culture writ large. At 80 minutes long, it never stops being entertaining, but the spirit of cackly invention gives way to self-repetition and inevitability. There's an early beat where a designer of haunted houses says dead ends sound scary but are actually just boring; it's too bad when New Group more or less backs into one, even failing to do much with its sporadic intimations of extra-terrestrial involvement. But I'd still buy a ticket to whatever Shimotsu does next. Grade:C+
