4. Suicide Circle (2002)
54 Japanese schoolgirls commit mass suicide by throwing themselves under a train. A further group of Japanese students fling themselves off the roof of their school. There is soon an epidemic of suicides sweeping the nation as the police hurry to find what the source behind the craze is. I will say that out of all of the films in the list, Suicide Circle terrified me the most, especially the scene on top of the roof where the teenage school pupils talk each other into suicide. They have no genuine motive for committing suicide, they aren't depressed but the power of conformity urges them to take the leap. There is a confusing attitude in Japan to suicide - on the one hand it is a taboo, and on the other hand it is seen as something honourable. There had been 33,000 teenage suicides in Japan the year before this film was made. There is a cult of youth In Japan where the young are treated venerably. Like Pulse, Suicide Circle poses a similar answer to modern angst in being 'connected' to yourself, the environment you are in and the people around you. It is a vast tale of alienation - meaningless suicides brought about for nothing. Maybe if people were a bit more tender in their relations with one another, life wouldn't be so cheap and extinguished so easily with such glee abandon. The film is full of references and symbols, everything is very deliberate - like the girl band called Dessart which is sometimes spelled Dessert or Desert. Everything is imbued with meaning in the film and it is a horror movie that will disturb, frighten and unsettle you. If you haven't caught this slice of J Horror, I give it the highest recommendation possible.