Takashi Shimizu does away with the creepy kid under the blanket

I was really intending to go to the French  Film Festival that day. But due to the not-that-fair weather from where I was at that time, I just decided to head instead to the nearest cinema and watch "7500", the new film by Takashi Shimizu, one of the leading figures of the so-called J-Horror genre, having brought us such spine-tinglers as "The Grudge 1 and 2" (both the Japanese original and the American remake) and "Marebito". Unlike the more popular "The Grudge" though, this one, from the looks of it, is destined to become a direct-to-video movie-fare. B-level actors, a small budget, a single setting, a simple premise and a condensed running-time - everyone involved in the film must not really be thinking that it would have a wider reach and a hefty box-office return. 

The question that could be of interest at this point is:Given such factors, does it follow that the film is no better than your daily primetime soap? Well, not necessarily. I will not bat an eyelash in saying that "7500" is enjoyable enough. It is a fairly decent work, not destined to become a classic, but not meant to be thrown straight into the bin either. It may not be as heavy-going as a Kiyoshi Kurosawa chiller or as pulse-pounding as a Hideo Nakata thriller (which may become as a surprise coming from Takashi Shimizu himself), but the film is still something worth checking out. The numeric title refers to the name of an international plane on a commercial flight bound to Tokyo. It initially appears to be just another ordinary flight:various passengers are coming in with their own share of drama and idiosyncracies, and the captain and the crew are going about their job as usual. But just a few hours after the take-off, strange things begin to happen among the passengers and on the flight itself, among which are the agonizing death of a fellow passenger and a violent mid-air turbulence. What exactly is going on? 

This time around, albeit they still come up in bits and pieces, this particular thriller relies less on spooky and other-worldly creatures, jump scares and blood-and-gore spectacle, but more on visual suggestions and red herrings. It is to the director's credit that, within such a single and confined setting, he still manages to convey a sense of foreboding and helpless confinement, with the plane's route seems to be heading toward its final destination. The actors (among them is Ryan Kwanten of HBO's "True Blood") likewise do a fairly commendable job, making the most of their limited characters to avoid falling into caricatures (unavoidable in "ensemble" horror pics) and be grounded still in reality. This is one of those fairly admirable scenarios wherein despite an under-developed screenplay, the cast of characters is still able to become resourceful in their own way. 

Without giving away the film's beguiling (yet not entirely unfamiliar) final twist, let me just say that, in its own way, "7500" makes us ponder over that likely inevitable point in our lives wherein we are in the mid-way between the few moments right after death and the moment of finally moving on. It may really be that there are things in this life that prevent us from advancing towards the other dimension, once the unwelcome thief in the night finally pays its visit. 

(Photo below:These flight passengers are about to face their greatest fear in "7500".)