Trying to make friends, Nuiko (Sakura Mineo) goes through life with only a series of animated plush toys that she can talk to. When they warn her that a dangerous serial killer is in the area, she inadvertently discovers it's actually her old friend Yabachari (Takara Mineo) who is looking to kill bullies to enact world peace. Finally finding a real person to be involved with, she brings him back to her house with her doll friends which brings out a deadly secret that puts everything in jeopardy and sends him into a bizarre quest for survival.
Scary Friend is screening at Nippon Connection
Overall, “Scary Friend” was a pretty solid outing. One of its better features is the fantastically whimsical atmosphere present in a film about a young girl who talks to dolls. This idea of Nuiko being so consumed with her doll friends, from making them, refusing to do anything with other people to hang out with them, and spending most of the day tracking down a misplaced individual, offers a great insight into her character. Whether she's holding conversations with the dolls, playing games, or being obsessed with tracking the missing doll, this type of antisocial behavior provides a special introverted look at Nuiko. This is all given life by spectacular special effects workg that gives each of the dolls a personality to help with this psychological insight.
The contrast between these scenes and the later ones with Yabachari creates a wild difference. Whereas the first half of the film and their initial meetups feels quite lighthearted with Nuiko simply looking for friends, the second half takes this goofy adventure time and drops more of a horror feel to everything. When Yabachari learns the truth about Nuiko and her friends, this signals the start of a series of wild confrontations that include some creative means of having him combat the dolls to try to escape. These are quite effective and manage to plausibly provide a kind of darker tone to everything which allows the finale to tie everything together for a fun time.
There's not much wrong with “Scary Friend” but its flaw is a decidedly major one. That comes mostly from the type of generally goofy and silly atmosphere present throughout. The whole concept of Nuiko talking to dolls who bounce around in an exaggerated manner while answering her in equally cartoonish voices creates a bizarre feel. This might be somewhat too over-the-top for some who aren't prepared for this kind of lighter tone and expecting some kind of wild genre fare. While it's not fair for the film to fall short of the expectations its concept sets up for it, this factor does come up to drag this down due to the awkwardness of the setup.
Featuring a lot to like while being somewhat hard to get into for those reasons, “Scary Friend” is a fun, if not hard, film to get into. The main ones this will be for are the viewers who are fine with the featured idea here or are just general fans of bizarre Asian cinema.
