Suicide Circle (2002)

This movie is twisted! The first time I watched it, my reaction was "what in the world did i just sit through?!" I was ready to just write this movie off as confusing-weirdo-gore, and never think about it again, but I couldn't get it out of my head!

The movie starts out with 54 school girls gleefully jumping in front of a train. This sets the tone for the type of campy gore that is featured throughout the movie. I don't particularly like gore, but I like movies that make me think, and the plot definitely kept me thinking/scratching my head in confusion.

The story is set up as a mystery involving a website, a pop group, and a bag, that are linked to a wave of seemingly random mass suicides. The story is really much bigger than a simple mystery plot. There are a lot of esoteric scenes that turn this movie into an unapologetically ambiguous social commentary (If all of your friends jumped off of a bridge, would you???). The mystery does eventually get solved, but the resolution just leads to more questions. My rewatch value score is high, because my confusion over parts of the story was so high. I honestly think the concept was much stronger than the actual story, and individual scenes were stronger than the plot as a whole. I usually hate movies that put metaphor before plot, but this movie still manages to be so entertaining. The subject matter is serious, but many of the scenes have more of a dark comedy feel, and did I mention it's sort of a musical?

I had to give the soundtrack a 10 because it left such an impression. I love how disturbingly catchy Dessert's songs were, and I still want the "mail me" ringtone. I have no idea why the Genesis' character starts randomly singing, but his song was also stuck in my head afterwards. I admit that a couple of the songs made it onto my iPod.

This movie is a hard one to recommend. It took a second viewing for me to realize that I actually liked it, and I do now own it. If you can handle a little gore, and and feel like watching something unconventional, I'd say give it a try. Join the club ; )

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Side note: Suicide Club has a sequel. It’s called “Noriko’s Dinner Table” and is indispensable for understanding this movie and the story’s complexity.

Suicide Club is being described as a horror movie and while it does contain elements which justify the classification, it shocks with an irrational absurdness rather than by depicting nightmarish events.(Gore is present but not the central attraction.)

If I were asked to describe Suicide Club in three words it would be the following: creepy, chaotic and surreal.

The actors’ performances are convincing, but as locations are changed rapidly and attention is paid to multiple characters while none is detailedly introduced, a sole character’s portrayal is of no importance.

The music is generally appropriate, but surprisingly, positively contradictious at times.
Suicide Club also contains two full-length songs, one of them as bizarre as possible.

Why should you be watching this?
Although Suicide Club was promoted as a movie on its own, it leads to more questions than answers.
It’s part of a jigsaw and can be seen as the threshold to a ridiculously witty story which unravels in “Noriko’s Dinner Table”.
I highly recommend watching both movies, while Suicide Circle serves its purpose as a foundation, it does not fail to entertain.

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