Inexplicable murders plague a Japanese town, conspicuous not just in their brutish commonality (each victim is finished in the same way: a broad X carved into their neck) but in the immediate presence and confused confession of a guilty party. The evidence doesn't lie - these men and women clearly committed the crime - but the striking similarities and a complete lack of motive or hesitation suggest something larger at work. Alongside an obsessive, emotionally distant police detective, we dig for clues, grow frustrated, luck into a break and suddenly find ourselves right in the middle of something that's beyond our control.

Exploring the tricky theme of impulsive, ritualistic violence as a sort of viral social disorder, Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) toys with some heavy stuff in Cure. It's a bold experiment that doesn't always work. The setup of the first hour, for example, is awfully slow and disconnected, considering the amount of bloody murder going down. Once we edge nearer to the cause of this macabre work, though, things get interesting, fast. It's horror in both the traditional sense and a more modern one; a gory hunt for an unhinged mastermind (of sorts) with startling jumps and plenty of body bags, but also a haunting vision of madness as an uncontrollable plague, an invisible killer that moves from one host to the next. An imperfect but effective experiment, particularly as the screen betrays our trust in the third act.