A haunting serial killer film. It's style is much like Seven, but is somewhat more disturbing because it doesn't offer any easy answers, but rather raises several interesting questions. Ones that leave you thinking long after the credits roll.

God that was one of the most overwhelmingly underwhelming movies I've seen ever, pretentious boring uninteresting crap that gets repetitively repetitive. So much potential because the concept the eerie atmosphere but everything falls apart in execution. They clearly ran out of ideas in the middle part and gave that shitty ending just to be seen as cool. A solid acting performance by the lead but god damn it his character is so shite. I don't think I've been so bored ever watching a movie, it even has the mystery tag which is one of my most favourite genres and what makes them great is the intrigue but there is none of that here, little to no horror elements and barely any thrill.

The way everything is so normal for the victims in this movie is both unsettling and fitting. The slow descent the main character falls into is also well done, and the ending is so creepy. Highly recommend to people who enjoy unconventional movies.

3 Thoughts After Watching ‘Cure’:

1. I’m confused and annoyed.

2. Mamiya and his stupid questions. Whether integral to the plot or not, it was equivalent to whiny kids in the backseat incessantly repeating “are we there yet?”. It got old very fast.

3. So much, maybe a bit _too_ much, left up for interpretation. As I struggle to piece together what I just watched, I simultaneously struggle to care. For what it’s worth, I wasn’t bored.

more seedy thriller vibes than plot

Fits right in with movies like _Se7en_ and _Silence of the Lambs_. It has a bleak tone, some interesting cinematography and good attention to detail when it comes to sound design. I love the concepts its delving into, exploring the nature of malaise and evil. However, much like the two aforementioned films, I have trouble taking a lot of its plot seriously, because the way it portrays psychosis feels too sensationalized and cheesy for something that tries to be this realistic crime drama. It's probably more effective for people who are into true crime and that type of silly shit, because for me the emotional moments don't pack as much punch. I think it needed a lot more formalism and surrealism for it to work, or simply embrace the pulpy nature of it all. Still, the acting and technical execution are most definitely there, it has some really sharp editing choices in particular. Overall, I'm just glad we've moved on from doing crime movies like this, because this type of serial killer movie hasn't aged particularly well. Give me a movie like _Zodiac_ over this any day.

6/10

When he has cured the patient, it is the shaman who must give something in exchange. Having made good the body, he must make good the debt. Or the Japanese story of the woman who lets the girl drown because, she says, if she saves her life, the child will owe her such an obligation it will be unbearable.
Our entire psychology fails before these ancestral rules.
p.51
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For the Japanese, the most commonplace individual and the most
mundane object are both singular, even in their repetition. The problem is not to be different. For us, by contrast, that is an obligation. But there isn't difference for everyone, just as there isn't a meaning for every word (the characteristic of meaning is that not everything has it). This is how everyone ends up alone, dispossessed of both their singularity and their difference.
p.49

Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000-2004

very interesting in its approach but bad finalization

Yes it's well made (in a grimy way) and some ideas are good, but there is way too much plot repetitiveness and overal non progression of such things as intensity and mystery.