Film: Death Tube
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 18
Running time: 117 mins
Director: Yohei Fukuda
Starring: Shoichi Matsuda, Wataru Kaoru, Ishino Atsushi, Namikawa Hajime, Ashihara Kensuke
Genre: Crime/Horror/Thriller
Studio: 4Digital
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
In a world where images of the macabre and bizarre are readily available, and consumers are becoming more and more difficult to shock, Japanese director Yohei Fukuda (Chanbara Beauty/Tokyo Gore School) brings us Death Tube, a film about an internet site where online voyeurs log on to witness murder as entertainment.
Satoshi Inoue is introduced to a horrific underground website called Death Tube (God knows how YouTube have allowed this, if they are as yet aware - even the logo is identical), where unfortunate victims are brutally murdered live online. The grisly spectacle is filmed by webcams and broadcast over the internet.
Satoshi inexplicably wakes up to find himself an unwilling participant in the proceedings, trapped in a dingy dungeon-like room, with a laptop, linked up via webcam to the Death Tube site, along with 7 other equally terrified victims.
They are taunted by a malevolent yellow bear who appears first as a cartoon on the screen, and then as a man in a suit, who forces them to compete against each other in a series of sadistic games for their lives. Only one of them – the bear informs them – will get the chance to leave Death Tube alive...
Death Tube begins as an exciting, inventive horror, taking a clever new angle on the torture-porn genre. Its use of webcams and a familiar internet site format are exploited well, and make good use of the non-existent budget. Sadly, though, by forty minutes in it feels like Fukuda may have played his hand too soon. The clever use of internet video format begins to feel like old hat, and the shock factor of our main protagonist finding himself the star of the very show he’s been guiltily of enjoying has worn off. By the third act the whole premise of an internet death room is pretty much null-and-void, with the camera cutting less-and-less to the web cam view, and when it does only as an afterthought. Fukuda seems almost weighed down by the weight of his own clever idea, and couldn’t wait to get it out of the way as soon as possible so he could get on with what he really wants to do, which is to make Saw 16.
As a comment on internet consumer culture, and the de-sensitisation of the modern internet user, Death Tube succeeds admirably. Like John McNoughton did so well in Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Fukuda holds a mirror up to show us our own desire for grisly entertainment. Shocking as it is to see viewers hungrily consume murder-as-entertainment, and comment gleefully on the gruesome action, we cannot escape the fact that we are also watching the grisly events play out for our own enjoyment. However, whereas McNoughton cleverly left the violence largely to our imagination, Fukuda has no such subtle designs. He’s happy to show us every gory, bloody detail - repeatedly and in super slow-mo if necessary.
Death Tube is largely a pastiche of its influences, most obviously the Saw films, but also fellow no-budget underground Asian shockers like The Guinea Pig Series’ Flower Of Flesh And Blood, which it clearly emulates. There’s also shades of Funny Games’ genial tormentors Peter and Paul in the yellow teddy bear, skipping happily among the carnage, and taking guiltless delight in the suffering he causes. He almost winks to us the audience, making us all the more complicit in what’s happening. Unlike Funny Games director Michael Haneke, Fukuda doesn’t present the events in a sterile, analytical way. He’s here to have fun, and doesn’t care who knows it. This isn’t one of Haneke’s lectures, it’s more like Fukuda’s sick joke, and he’s having undeniable fun watching it all play out.
Sadly, the film all too often suffers from its technical limitations. Despite some inventive camerawork (including a beautifully composed final shot, which holds as the credits role), the whole thing looks like it’s been shot on home camcorders. If only Fukuda had had more of the courage of his convictions, and maybe exploited his lack of budget to shoot the whole thing from web-cam mode. Why not? It worked for Paranormal Activity. There’s also a bizarrely jarring classical soundtrack, which you know has been used simply because it hasn’t cost Fukuda anything in royalties. Another sore point (but one which Death Tube can’t be blamed for), is that the English subtitles often can’t keep up with the ‘viewer comments’, which flood the screen as the murders take place - as an English-language viewer you’ll feel as though you’re missing out on a the important voyeuristic element of the film.
Death Tube is a strong amateur effort from a filmmaker you feel is having a wonderful time putting his ideas onto the screen, but doesn't yet have the experience to know how to handle them. It feels like somewhat of a wasted opportunity that the main premise is blown in the first thirty minutes, and the rest of the film tries to live up to its influences instead of forging its own new ground. LOZ
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