Shock Labyrinth 3D

Outline
It's another scary Japanese movie with a female ghost/monster stalking a group of attractive teens/young adults. It is however still worth watching because of the slightly mind bending storyline and the fact that it's filmed in 3D.

Yet again, Takashi Shimizu is making scary movies, and this is no exception. Throughout the atmosphere continues to ratchet up notch by notch, until you realise that it is telling a story of some sort of bizzare time travel. Then this concept gets totally turned on the head until you're not quite sure of exactly what you've seen or who is meant to be mad (or not). Trust me, it's one to see.

As is commonplace in non-westernised horror, the Aristotelean narrative form is frequently let by the wayside in order to pursue more complex concepts or just plain scary visual images. Shock Labyrinth 3D lives up to this by putting a bunch of protagonists in a real-life location - Fuji-q High Land, an amusement park near Mt. Fuji. This amusement park really does have a haunted house that you can walk through and after this film I'd think twice about doing so! The protagonists actually explore this location twice. Their first foray being as children and they later return as young adults after seeing an unexpected face from the past (yes the girl from the box art).

A film in 3D
Of course I couldn't finish the review without talking about the 3D element. At times it works extremely well, with a true depth of field for some shots. However, it does no favours for the film when the subtitles come on. These can appear blurred and may irritate the eyes when watching. For the record, I watched both the 3D and 2D versions of the film and personally found the 3D version the superior. However, my other half felt that the opposite was the case, with the 2D DVD providing richer colours and far greater clarity.

Should I watch it?
If you're a fan of Asian horror films, you should probably watch Shock Labyrinth 3D. There's nothing wrong with it per se, but it doesn't light up the genre as The Grudge did. 3D brings another element to the film and makes it slightly more interesting and there are far worse ways to spend an evening (probably with an average Hollywood horror).

Final score
7/10