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(CIFF Review) NEW GROUP  Stacks Up as a Fantastically Unsettling, Yet Humorous Horror Film

By. Professor Horror

                                                                         

Sitting down to write this review, it’s hard to even begin explaining the absurdity of this film’s premise. Playing at the 61st Chicago International Film Festival as part of the After Dark programming, NEW GROUP is a bizarre and entertainingly strange movie from Japan. Written, directed, produced, and edited by Yuta Shimotsu, this film is proudly described by the creator himself as “a very strange film,” and that description fits perfectly. The story takes place mostly in a Japanese high school where students start compulsively building human pyramids. These are not small pyramids you make with five of your friends for a photo op, but enormous towers with dozens of people. While the premise sounds ridiculous, the tone of the film does manage to balance bonkers comedy with unsettling horror.

The film starts with people so obsessed with fame, success, or inflating their egos they become frothing dangerous mobs. Is this just the direction the human race is heading? Or is this some kind of alien intervention? Who knows. As we settle into the actual plot, we meet Ai (Anna Yamada) who is a typical high school girl in a typical Japanese school where uniformity and obedience are the norm. So, something as exotic as a new student (who has lived abroad) is enough to get everyone in the class quite excited. Yu (Yuzu Aoki) is tall and handsome with his round chin, but he has little patience for bullies or conformity.

However, there is no room for individual expression and the more you are like everyone else, the better off you will be. Don’t swim upstream, don’t go against what your told, and above all else, don’t stand out. Ai also balks at the thought of fitting in as several times throughout her day she is met with the option to join a group. And not in a fun group activity way, but more like a “gooba gabba! One of Us!” kind of situations. Therfore, the idea of confining and joining others brings her a great deal of anxiety. But this desire to separate herself from the masses comes in handy when said masses start climbing on top of each other and just motionlessly stare.

While the premise invites laughter, the film’s humor doesn’t erase its anxiety. The act of joining the human pyramids becomes a compulsion. People who witness them are drawn in, almost hypnotized, until they too are part of the structure. The effect is unsettling because it mirrors how easily individuals can be consumed by trends, ideologies, or collective thinking. The film’s tone feels similar to The Enigma of Amigara Fault, Junji Ito’s famous horror story where people discover human-shaped holes in a mountain and feel an uncontrollable urge to enter them. That story, like NEW GROUP, captures the horror of losing one’s individuality to an incomprehensible force that feels both external and deeply personal. On the other hand, Shimotsu’s absurdist streak recalls certain episodes of the American tv show Community, especially the zombie Halloween episode and the campus-wide “floor is lava” storyline. In those episodes, everyone accepts bizarre events as normal, allowing chaos to unfold with complete sincerity. Shimotsu uses a similar tone, treating the surreal as ordinary, which makes the horror more effective and the satire sharper. 

Overall, I can’t say enough that I loved this film. NEW GROUP explores the dangers of conformity and mob behavior with humor, imagination, and an uncanny sense of realism. Shimotsu proves himself to be a multitalented filmmaker with a distinct vision. If this is his idea of “strange,” then I hope he keeps getting stranger.