21 Days of Spooky: Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016)

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21 Days of Spooky is not about pop culture that sets out to fright you with brain-eating, viscerae-hanging, slash-killing scenes, but with thoughts that linger and persist on your life long after you've watched them. Or are just downright creepy. Tonight's spooky: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Creepy. Some spoilers ahead.

What's it about?: A retired police profiler moves in with his wife to a quiet neighborhood and befriends a weird neighbor. When a disappearance-related cold case resurfaces, he starts to think that maybe his weird neighbor has something to do with it.

I like cyclical shit, sue me. If I started this edition of the Days of Spooky feature with a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film, you bet your bottom dollar I'm gonna close it with another one of the same guy. Thankfully for my stubbornness, Cure wasn't the only Kurosawa thriller that gets under your skin real quick, and that's how you get Creepy tonight. As you can read on the very basic summary above, it's your typical story of "is my neighbor a murderer or am I going crazy". Except that in here you totally know Mr. Nishino (Teruyuki Kagawa, who you might remember from the Dark Tales of Japan segment) is the criminal everyone's looking for.

The fun on this film is seeing how does detective Koichi (Hidetoshi Nishijima) ends up finally figuring it out. It's not when Nishino acts strangely from the get-go, or when Nishino's daughter tells him she's not actually related to Nishino, when his other neighbor's house blows up, when Nishino tells him his wife is useless, nor when said wife starts feeling sick not long after truly befriending Nishino. There are several more red flags flying around throughout the plot and yet Koichi can't realize his neighbor is a fucked up person with horrible intentions.

And you know why? Well, Creepy gives you several reasons for it. The first is that Koichi hasn't recovered very well after the accident that forced him to retire, when a criminal he was profiling snapped and shot him, so he mistrusts his own judgment because that only one time he failed to realize the criminal was highly dangerous. When the cold case pops up, he doesn't want to jump to quick conclusions and link a guy he's barely known to this long-time case. His neighbor is just a kinda kooky dude with an equally kooky daughter and a wife he's never seen but that the neighbor told him she totally exists and she's fine.

The other reason is, precisely, that Nishino is just your average neighbor. How many times you've moved into a new place and distrusted your neighbors a bit for the silliest reasons? So, Nishino acts strangely. So, his wife is essentially Japanese Shelly Miscavige. So, his daughter goes around saying cryptic shit and acting a bit drugged. We never truly expect our suspicions are correct, we really want to believe that those who surround us pose absolutely no danger to our family, and thus we end up falling straight into their trap. Usually, by the time we realize, it's too late or we're no longer around to act on it.

It's that most people, especially in a very polite and correct society, don't want to be that person and start pointing a finger at everyone. Most times, the suspicion is overlooked as paranoia or whatever other shit's on that person's life. Koichi gets laughed at and reminded of his accident, and even gets imprisoned himself when he attacks Nishino after his wife goes missing. Nobody wants to disturb the coming-and-goings of a peaceful neighborhood, and even more so when other members of the community seem to be okay with what's happening, positing the question of whether the doubt is unfounded or everyone else is nuts.

Also, what are people gonna do, bring in their Hardy Boys knowledge and arm a personal investigation if the authorities aren't on their side? This isn't the wild wild west, we're all bound by rules, as unfortunate as they sometimes are. Koichi can't break into Nishino's house, or interrogate the guy's daughter without a warrant, or even touch the guy without landing a stint in prison. Some shady-ass folks out there take advantage of the laws and the protection a nice community gives them to commit all sorts of heinous acts scot-free. How many serial killers, kidnappers, child assaulters waved at their neighbors every morning?

There's probably some sort of fucked up event happening right now near you that you're not aware of, nor perhaps will ever be. And you're exposing yourself, your family and acquaintances to that danger. But, again, you can't ever know, maybe you're safe and it's truly a nice community in where nothing happens. Or nothing will happen precisely to you and those you love. Our main hero Koichi thought so, too, until his wife went missing.

In all honesty, hope y'all have a fantastic Halloween tomorrow!!! Eat some candy, watch a few scary movies, and simply have fun. See you next year for maybe 31 further Days of Spooky?