Split Picks looks at an absolute masterwork of horror and a later haunted romance from Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Split Picks continues its special October series on Japanese Horror with a look at two films from Kiyoshi Kurosawa. After a string of seemingly unrelated murders with undeniable similarities, Detective Takabe begins to link the odd details of the killings together. It leads him to Mamiya, a man who claims to have no memory, no idea who he is, or even what he looks like. He speaks almost exclusively in question, and his nonchalance proves to be the entrance to his unique form of hypnosis.

In 2016's Daguerrotype, Jean is hired to help Stephane operate a daguerreotype, an obsolete form of photography that requires subjects to remain motionless for hours to capture the image. Jean falls in love with Stephane's daughter, Marie, but their romance raises questions of whether Marie is actually alive.

Together, we get a look at what many deem to be Kurosawa's masterpiece, and a later film that features many of the hallmarks of his style. Bennett, Craig, and Lucille also weigh in on if they believe in ghosts, what it means to ask questions, and whether great art truly does equate to immortality.

Japanese Horror

Split Picks: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 'Cure' (1997) Vs. 'Daguerrotype' (2016)

To close out the series on Japanese Horror, Spit Picks looks at a director known for testing the limits of violence on film.Takashi Miike is best known for three things: He is prolific, versatile, and is no stranger to using extreme gore. With 115 directorial credits listed on his IMDb page (at time of publishing), he has made films in just about every genre imaginable. But from blood-soaked epics like Ichi The Killer and 13 Assassins to a glut of Yakuza films, and even a death-centric musical comedy in The Happiness of the Katakuris, Miike's films are never shy to show off fountains of gore with no sense of shyness. But through them all, Miike always injects his unique style, no matter the genre.

With Bennett Glace and Jim Hickcox, Split Picks finishes its special series on Japanese Horror by comparing Miike's masterwork to one of his most extreme depictions of violence — an almost hour-long school shooting. With Audition, Miike follows a widowed man, Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi), after his friend suggests they set up a film audition to help him find a new wife. When he meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), they quickly fall in love, but everyone around Shigeharu tells him to notice the red flags, which he gleefully overlooks, until he finds himself in a scenario that ranks among the most infamous torture scenes on film. It's a testament to Audition that, in an era when most successful Asian films were remade by Americans, still no one has remade this tale of revenge.

Lesson of the Evil finds a popular and handsome teacher on a path to violence against his own students. With a code of morals that makes sense to only him, he tries to stop his students from cheating on tests and uncovers various scandals in the school. As his background comes into focus, he doubles down on what he learned during his time in the United States and. with the assistance of a talking shotgun, he decides to solve his problems in the worst way possible.

The pairing of films provides some fascinating contrasts in tone, and some striking similarities in their overall structure. In this episode, the gang discusses how Audition bends time, if Lesson of the Evil crosses the limits of acceptable violence on film, and how As The Gods Will might be the spiritual sequel to Lesson of the Evil that makes black humor work in a similarly morbid scenario.

Split Picks: Takashi Miike's 'Audition' Vs. 'Lesson of the Evil'

Frank Henenlotter is no stranger to capturing misfits, oddballs, and mutated figures on film, but he always manages to find the humanity in each of them. His unique avant-gutter exploitation cinema has resulted in memorable characters and brutal moments, but he embraces the deadly and unpredictable sides that his creations offer.

Duane and Belial, the once-conjoined twins who shocked Times Square in Basket Case (1982), are back in Basket Case 2 (1990). They find a new home in a mansion of misfits, but the press is after them and closing in. Bad Biology (2008) follows a woman with seven clitori and an insatiable — sometimes murderous — sex drive, and has mutant babies moments after the act; her path collides with a man who has an uncontrollable, brain-controlling, drug-addled penis. This is a genuine weird film for those seeking something they've never seen before — or could even imagine exists.

Our host Jim Hickcox is joined by filmmakers and film teachers Steve Collins and film Spencer Parsons.

Maybe don't listen to this episode at work...

Split Picks

Split Picks: Frank Henenlotter's 'Basket Case 2' Vs. 'Bad Biology'

From The Norwegian Drillbit Massacre through Oslo Terror, Xposure Video's debut release collects Møller's films together for the first time.

At age 15, Jon Christian Møller and some friends created a shot-on-video splatter film about a power-tool-wielding zombie's murder spree called The Norwegian Drillbit Massacre (1988). The short is full of stomach-busting practical effects and a firecracker-loaded climax. It has since become his best known film, but over a prolific two-year stretch, Møller and his friends made three short films — Drillbit, Cannibal Massacre, and I Hate You (Kill or Die) — and one feature film, The Oslo Terror. These films are exercises in homemade gore effects, stolen soundtracks, and stunts that are more extreme than they probably needed to be.

For the first time, these four films are available together on DVD as Videogore: The films of J.C. Møller through Xposure Video, the new label founded by C.B. Cobb and Split Tooth's Vincent Albarano. Craig Wright, Aaron Bartuska, and Albarano team up for another October Horror Split Picks episode to discuss these Norwegian splatter films, and, more specifically, Albarano's direct role in bringing these films to a new audience. As Albarano describes, these are "four jaw droppingly sick dispatches so vile they only could have been made by jovial adolescents."

Listen to hear the origin story behind Xposure Video, the common threads running through each of J.C. Møller's films, and what it took to track down and release these films.

Split Picks: Videogore: The Films of J.C. Moller

Split Tooth Media is an independent publication based in Portland, Oregon, that still believes in long-form journalism and in-depth podcasts about music and film. Home of "Split Picks," a head-to-head showdown series about the career trajectories of filmmakers and musicians, created by Craig Wright; Jim Hickcox and Jason Michelitch's film criticism series "Cinesthesia;" and Rob Delany and 'T' Trimble's guide to exploring the world of art cinema with "Arthouse Drive-In."

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