Copyright popmatters
The key press image peddled alongside Yûta Shimostu’s horror film, New Group, is possibly the only striking one across its entire runtime. Against the picturesque Japanese countryside, hundreds of uniformed schoolchildren form a human pyramid, screaming in unison. Even without context, it’s a disturbing visual that belongs in a film deserving of its gravity. Instead, it’s the misleading centerpiece of whatever the hell the other 81 minutes of are. New Group is sophomoric slapstick B-horror too big for its britches. It splits a tedious sense of humor with the utterly stupid political convictions of a preteen who’s just skimmed a Wikipedia article about the NSA. “They want us to fall in line, maaaaan. They’re watching.” New Group has a simple enough premise. At a Japanese high school, students spontaneously begin forming human pyramids. They’re small at first —just a few students —but concerns about the behavior rise quickly among classmates and parents alike. Before long, to ease everyone’s fears, the school administration co-opts the activity and encourages students to join in, to build the biggest human monument they can. As they reluctantly do so, deadened looks creep across their faces, and their identities are erased. Two students, Ai and Yu (or, as the director pointed out during his Chicago International Film Festival Q&A, Yu and Ai), refuse to join the madness. They stand outside of the brainwashed masses. The human pyramid eventually transforms into gymnastic structures of death: groups of students move their bodies together as magic machines of death, crushing and explosively killing the strays that remain. So, New Group is ostensibly an indictment of the evils of conformity: the public’s willingness to accept orders from the top down and squash whatever individuality remains. Fair enough. However, just in case you don’t understand this, Shimostu is more than happy to help you out. A celebrity couple is beaten senseless by paparazzi with keyboards and monitors. A poor old lady falls in the street, and the young people pull out their phones in hopes her helplessness will go viral. A politician with yen falling out of his suit pockets asks the filthy homeless for their votes while laughing maniacally. “Why are you all so stupid?” a homeless woman asks. “We’re elected representatives of the people. We’re stupid because the people are stupid. Mwahahaha!” says the politician. This is an actual quote from the film. A generous reading is that New Group is supposed to be stupid; intentionally on-the-nose in lieu of some more pressing entertainment value. That would be fine if the film were funny, tense, or an outright cornstarch bloodbath. Alas, it’s none of those things. Once its silly setup falls away, there’s a clear expectation that we’re supposed to care for the two free-thinking teens. We get Ai’s tragic family backstory, ending in her young sister pirouetting into traffic and a cartoon squelch. We get Yu and Ai falling in love somehow, moved by each other’s commitment to standing out and standing up for what’s morally right. Tears are shed, families are broken, and newscasters are disappearing for crying conspiracy. At least there’s humor along the way, all of a vaguely Monty Python shade, but it’s done in service of a political message that’s deadly serious: we’re all breaking our backs for the people at the top. That’s not a message that belongs in New Group, which sports all the artful subtlety of an SNL sketch. Naturally, the solution is to challenge the human pyramid with a human sphere. There’s probably some metaphor about sharing the weight of the world there, but by the time this film’s interminable cut reaches that point, you’d prefer to just explode, too. The glimpses of promise here – our leads entering the pyramid and strolling through 20-foot walls of bodies and faces, and one of the most bizarre and genuinely funny celebratory “kiss” scenes – can’t even begin to hold this thing upright. There’s joy and profundity to be found in all kinds of low-budget, pratfalling nonsense, but none of it can be found inside or outside of New Group‘s pyramid scheme.
