★★½☆☆
New Group is the latest film from Yûta Shimotsu, a horror film that is trying to offer a deeper and more subliminal message, capturing the hype of elevated horror and films that have something to say about the culture at the time.
The film follows Ai, a high school student who sees her entire world come crashing down around her as all her fellow classmates develop this cult-like mentality, slowly turning into mindless followers who will kill on demand.
“It’s Mom and Dad meets Assassination Nation.”
Taking the concept of people being brainwashed into committing murder, while taking the baseline of Assassination Nation, with its focus on social media and the negative effects it has had on society.
Most of the film’s problems are due to the script itself, offering an interesting premise of the cult-like mentality that social media has created, yet failing to captivate by trying to be more socially relevant without being inherently intellectual in its execution.
The script is trying to make a social statement while also being an entertaining horror flick. Which can occur. A film can be both a social statement and a great horror film, but it takes careful crafting and a layered story that is both coherent and entertaining.
New Group fails on both of these aspects by trying to create a basic, surface-level social statement that takes away from the entertaining and interesting aspects at the core of the film.
If they had gone more in the direction of Mom and Dad and used the simple brainwashed mentality to create this group of students who become ruthless killers, focusing more on a group of them, it would have allowed the story room to breathe and legs to walk.
Instead, they take what should have been a short film and stretch it out to just over a reasonable enough runtime to call it a feature-length movie, adding irrelevantly relevant sequences to add minutes instead of depth, characters, or purpose.
“Adding irrelevantly relevant sequences to add minutes instead of depth, characters, or purpose.”
The opening scene isn’t connected to the film’s central character; it’s more of its mission statement. We see a person getting attacked, then people recording it before deciding to join in and attack them as well.
Creating a subtext that if you’re merely standing by recording someone being attacked, then you are an accomplice by association. You’re essentially one step away from becoming the attacker, simply because instead of trying to help, you are recording someone’s pain, suffering, and physical abuse as entertainment and for views online.
The joining-in aspect isn’t far off from what happens online once you post that video. The video recording of what could be evidence of a crime becomes a source of mob mentality and online debates that usually quickly turn into heated arguments, which have resulted in people reporting death threats over opinions they’ve posted online.
Where the problem is amplified here is that the film doesn’t simply use this in a scene that builds onto an ongoing storyline or as a plot device, but more as a social statement, trying to create relevance in this new space of larger commentary horror instead of simply being a horror film.
Something they reinforce by actually having one of the characters say something along the lines of, “If you’re simply standing by and watching, you’re just as much a part of the problem,” in a monologue after they sat back and watched someone get bullied by a group of girls and didn’t try to stop it.
From a technical aspect, the film is working overtime, trying to compensate for the lack of story it has to tell. The opening sequences, while not creating a compelling, intertwining, coherent story, are fantastically executed.
Miki Ingawa, along with Yûta Shimotsu, are credited with editing the film, which is one of its stronger aspects. Offering smooth transitions from scene to scene that capture the intensity and horror of what’s being displayed.
Pairing this with Toru Nishioka’s cinematography offers a well-executed film visually, for there are moments where the cinematography flourishes, as well as dips below standard, creating a balance that still exceeds other aspects of the film that really drag.
“While New Group had the potential to be a really fun horror flick, it loses its footing in the script.”
New Group never finds a way to escape the impossible task of outperforming a weak script.
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