Horror can be beautiful.
New Religionfollows Miyabi through her mourning process after the accidental death of her young daughter.
As all these features close in on the viewer, they feel as helpless as Miyabi.
Image by Nimesh Niyomal
Miyabi’s grief is framed as terrifying, with her mourning process mounting asense of claustrophobiathat cages the audience.
For the rest of the film, the camera lingers on the same details.
Miyabi compulsively tends to the garden her daughter was watering when she died.
New Religion follows Miyabi, a divorced woman grappling with her daughter’s death, who becomes entangled with unusual clients during her work as a call girl. As photographs of her body are taken, supernatural occurrences suggest a growing connection to her daughter’s spirit, leading to societal upheaval.
When Miyabi’s boyfriend purposefully breaks a potted plant, she lashes out.
No country does horror as well as Japan, and these movies prove it.
The film teases whether Miyabi is in contact with her daughter’s spirit for much of the runtime.
New Religion follows Miyabi, a divorced woman grappling with her daughter’s death, who becomes entangled with unusual clients during her work as a call girl. As photographs of her body are taken, supernatural occurrences suggest a growing connection to her daughter’s spirit, leading to societal upheaval.
Leaving the question up in the air for so long creates mounting tension.
The more Miyabi returns to Oka, the worse she looks.
Her hair is greasy, and her eyes have bags under them.
However, she is also able to see her daughter more often.
This uncertainty leaves the audience holding their breath for the reveal.
Long, lingering shots focus onMiyabi’s dead-eyed stareas she goes to and from Oka’s apartment.
The score of those scenes is heavy, reinforcing an underlying sense of danger.
There is no moment of gruesome gore or bombastic jump scares.
New Religion Is A Visual Masterpiece
Despite budget constraints,New Religionplaces agreat emphasis on aesthetics.
The lurid red of the graphics is stark against the black.
Shrill string music plays, signaling thatNew Religionintends to explore the visceral and disturbing.
The visuals of the photography montages are intentionally curated to invoke the uncanny.
Quick clips of contorted spines, twisted legs, and bent arms flicker by as the camera flashes.
This dark coloring is always followed by the sterile blues and whites of the actual Polaroids taken.
One brief scene shows several of the Polaroids lined up.
These scenes read as cold and dreary to the viewer.
The prominence of cool blues and grays keeps the audience from ever feeling settled or comfortable.
This desolate color palate punctuates the misery ofNew Religions overarching themes.
The score is likewise designed to trap the viewer in a suspended sense of dread.
New Religionis an indie darling, popular among those in the know about foreign cinema.
His steady focus on cultivating an unsettling atmosphere allowedNew Religionto elevate itself above any singular genre description.
The film is genuinely harrowing without ever having to resort to cheap scare tactics.
The aesthetics ofNew Religionare not only stunning but essential to the plot and the horror.
New Religionis available to stream on Amazon Prime in the U.S.
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