I’m one of many who were impressed by Yûta Shimotsu’s debut horror feature, Best Wishes to All. A strange, terrifying journey ripe with social commentary, the film marked Shimotsu as a director to watch for the foreseeable future. His latest, New Group, oozes the same uncanny horror steeped in social issues, but without the narrative punch to suck viewers in like the antagonists of the bizarre tale.
High school student Ai (Anna Yamada) worries about the same thing everyone else her age does…fitting in. Though she tries again and again to speak up, she routinely struggles in the face of peer pressure. She doesn’t want to be like everyone else, but that’s easier said than done when being liked seems so important. Following the arrival of transfer student, Yu (Yuzu Aoki), a strange phenomenon emerges: Students begin forming a human triangle in the field outside the school. Before long, the majority of the classmates…and citizens…have been brainwashed into becoming part of a violent mob that moves with one mind, killing anyone who doesn’t join. Now, it’s up to Ai and a handful of others to prove that individualism has the power to shatter groupthink.
Like Best Wishes to All, Shimotsu goes hard on the social commentary. Opening on an eerie shot of the globe, we’re treated to a montage of mob violence as citizens are harassed in the street and a famous couple is beaten for not answering questions from journalists. It’s a world that has lost its goddamn mind…a preview of what’s to come for Ai and friends.
Flashing back, we meet the shy, quiet student. She’s the type who smiles even when she doesn’t think something’s funny, or looks the other way when it comes to bullying, despite wanting so badly to help. “If you just watch, you’re an accomplice”, reminds Yu, the only one who doesn’t care about popularity as much as being himself. Throughout, Ai is challenged to go against the group, and at nearly every turn, she fails.
For Ai and the others, the cosmic horror that descends on her school reflects not just teenage peer pressure, but the forced assimilation that affects everyone around her. The school uniforms, the scolding of teachers who advise against “individual expression” in art class, the fear of speaking truth to those who can’t accept it…New Group rolls it all into a ball of metaphorical anxieties over the mob mentality that has become a staple of human society. There’s no explanation for why students have suddenly begun moving as one like a fleshy blob (achieved through impressive choreography). It isn’t needed. They are merely the monstrous image of the social creature Shimotsu aims to slay.
That’s going to bother viewers who prefer their films be hand-fed to them. Normally, I’m not one of them. But in the case of New Group, Shimotsu sacrifices good storytelling for metaphorical imagery to the point that it becomes a massive detriment.
Early on, there’s plenty of weird to keep things engaging. Rather than focusing on outright scares, New Group instead exists in a universe of Junji Ito-style strangeness. Zombified students roll and hop around in gymnastics formations; Glowing light emerges from the human pyramid; Ai’s parents laugh and smile like everything’s fine. Think The Faculty meets a Junji Ito tale, but without anywhere near the thrills or chills.
Yes, New Group fascinates with a unique premise. Yes, it’s filled to the brim with uncanny imagery. But it struggles to convert any of that into genuine terror. It’s hard to treat the absurd premise as scary. Even harder when there’s zero urgency from the main characters. Despite watching multiple students consumed by masses of human architecture as they roll over them in spurts of blood (deaths off-screen, mind you), New Group slows to a complete stop after Ai and Yu escape the school…and then wander around the city for most of the second half without telling anyone.
More than anything, New Group feels like Shimotsu furiously waving his arms around and screaming for us all to wake the fuck up from this nightmare of conformity. The film isn’t subtle in the slightest about what it wants to say. And in a time like now, when we see so much groupthink, from online mobs to news anchors and politicians telling us we’re not seeing truth with our own eyes…well, Shimotsu has every reason to be frustrated. New Group is that frustration incarnate.
There’s plenty to like about New Group if you’re into weird cosmic horror that defies logic while diving headfirst into the absurd. But, with a focus on messaging over engaging storytelling and a script that meanders more than it scares, weird won’t be enough to fully satisfy most. That said, like always, I encourage you to see it for yourself and make up your own mind. The last thing Shimotsu or I would want is for anyone to conform to platformed opinions. We have enough going on in the world, and at my age, I’ll pass on becoming part of the human triangle, thank you.
Join the New Group when it arrives on Shudder on November 6th.
Summary
Yûta Shimotsu unleashes one of the more bizarre horror films of the year, wrapped around a human ball of social anxieties.
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