'Booth'

I love movies set in a secluded space, because there's less room for bullshit. It's a limited number of people, a room or two, and let's do this. Everything else that requires explanation can be done via flashback for a couple of minutes. No bullshit, no extra characters popping out of nowhere, no room for a lot of CGI. It's dialog and the ability to keep the plot interesting that make these movies worthwhile. Let me give you a good example: the first Saw (2004) was one such movie. One bathroom, two guys, go figure it out. And it was beautiful. The following violated this one law that made the first one great: more space, more people, more crap. Another example, you say? Look no further than Phone Booth (2002). One street, one phone booth, a shitload of witnesses and a shooter. One of the best movies I've ever seen, by far.

And speaking of booths, today I bring you another example of a good movie set on a secluded space, straight from Japan. It's called Booth, it came out in 2005 and it is great. It's the story of a radio booth in Studio 6, where somewhere during the fifties, a radio show host hung himself after a strange call. The host of a late-night romance radio show, Shingo, is forced to work in Studio 6 tonight, and after a particular call is interrupted by the voice of a woman calling him a liar, things start getting stranger and stranger. As usual, I am going to leave a warning as to the incoming tapdancin' spoilers, so if you're still going to watch it, don't read. In fact, I would recommend nobody reads this review until they watch the movie. This is of the sort that spoils if you know what's coming.

It's hard to come up with something new as J-horror is concerned, or any sort of asian horror for that matter. It's always the creepy woman who moves funny and climbs around the walls, comes out of TVs, interferes with the radio, spirits people away and whatnot. Well, the first time I watched Ju-On, I nearly climbed the walls myself. It was awesome. But when every single asian horror film coming out emulates or reproduces this, it gets old. I still get a little cold in my spine when I watch Ju-On, and as a movie, it was a remarkable success. But the copies are just... bad. Booth, however, will only give you that crap on the final ten minutes. And even so, it's not exactly the same... but I'll get there.

Booth kicks off with Shingo (Ryuta Sato), an arrogant and self-important DJ who is having a crappy day. He's forced to work on a different studio, an old studio with a lot of problems for that matter, his team's failing to cope with the day's work (they forget to give him the songlist... or do they?), they mess up controls and put him on air saying things he shouldn't be saying (again... was it just an accident?) and seem to be making fun of him in general tonight. All his calls are weird (although strangely familiar) and to boot, a woman seems to be popping up on the speakers calling him a liar. One of the things that's stronger in Booth is a great dialog, but even superior to that, is how the actor performs it. He doesn't need to say a thing for you to guess what's on his mind, and in a movie where he can't comment what's happening to him with others, a lesser actor would have ruined it. At a point, Shingo starts believing his team is setting him up for a load of pranks, as payback for treating them like dirt, something you start figuring out as the movie goes. It's very unclear, up to the very end of the movie, wether or not they're actually trying to ruin his performance.

See, at first you wouldn't figure it, but as the movie goes, you start finding out dirt on Shingo that's actually very serious. He's having an affair with the woman who reads the news, who is, in fact, engaged to another guy. While trying to shake off the relationship, Shingo ends up pushing her out of his car... and, to the best of his knowledge, she dies. Countless times he's been rude to coworkers and unkind to women he was with. Even as a kid he was a little prick. And somehow, every call he's getting on this particular night is a reminder of something he's done. This is why, at some point, he starts believing the team's setting him up.

See, other than the voice calling Shingo a liar on the radio and the appearance of a woman in the studio at the very end of the flick, we are kept in the dark as to if the calls were set up, complete coincidence, paranormal activity or product of Shingo's own association. Whenever you have proof one way, you end up getting contradicting evidence later on. The plot is solid enough to make us, as well as Shingo, believe we're dealing with ghosts.

Effects are pretty basic, the movie didn't ask for much. I like the noir looks to the first couple of scenes and the audio used on this. At the end, when the woman shows up on the studio, what we get is something that looks right out of an old samurai flick in black and white. Quite the nice break from the weird lady with the kinky moves.

If you're looking for scary, though, you're looking in the wrong place. Booth isn't scary. It may startle (it did to me, once or twice) but it's not scary. However, it's interesting and can get your attention. It's a movie with a rhythm that builds you up to expecting something, gives you something completely different, and then picks up where it left off. A real must-see.