VN.005-傅詩瑤SIRI

　　魔术师社长杜新月一直想要得到业内早已经失传的传奇魔术秘笈《三式详解》，然而拥有该秘籍的童铁却拒绝将它交给心术不正的杜新月。愤怒之中，杜新月买通了童铁的助手，让她在童铁表演逃脱魔术的道具上做了手脚，导致童铁在表演过程中惨死。不仅如此，他们还继续迫害知道秘籍下落的童铁的儿子童行。　　根据父亲留下的项链，童行来到了龙泉寺，在那里的方丈将《三式详解》交给了他，可就在这个节骨眼上，一直尾随童行的方教授现身抢走了秘籍，然而螳螂捕蝉黄雀在后，杜新月紧随其后打倒了方教授，试图抢夺秘籍，最终会鹿死谁手呢？

　　Beneath the fake blood and cheap masks of countless haunted house attractions across the country, there are whispers of truly terrifying alternatives. Looking to find an authentic, blood-curdling good fright for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip in an RV to track down these underground Haunts. Just when their search seems to reach a dead end, strange and disturbing things start happening and it becomes clear that the Haunt has come to them...

　　「沈黙のパレード」の4年前に起きた事件を描く「ガリレオ 禁断の魔術」。帝都大学の准教授である湯川のもとを刑事の草薙俊平と、部下の牧村朋佳が訪れる。殺害されたフリーライター・長岡修の部屋から、突然倉庫の壁に穴が開くという奇妙な動画ファイルが見つかったのだ。動画を観て珍しく興味を抱く湯川。「映像が撮影された場所を見せてくれ」と言う湯川のただならぬ様子を気にかけつつ、草薙は牧村とともに現場へ向かう。

　　Set in an underground dungeon inhabited by bundled, ragged human beings, after the nuclear holocaust. The story follows the wanderings of a hero through the situations of survival. People wait for the Ark to arrive and rescue them while their habitat falls apart.　　Delving deep into the dusty and long abandonded vaults of b-cinema in search of lost gems always leaves me with a bittersweet taste. On one hand the discovery of unexpected gems where no one would think them possible is a rewarding experience. On the other hand though it makes one wonder how many of these remarkable low-budget oddities, personal love affairs of directors never quite famous and now all but forgotten, have almost forever slipped from memory?　　n any case what we have here is a little post-apocalyptic gem from Poland that is really better than it has any right to. The dystopian near future of O-BI, O-BA finds a group of survivors of the nuclear war that ravaged the Earth inhabiting an underworld concrete bunker and biding their time as they wait for the mysterious Ark, an air ship of some kind that will come and save them. The Ark proves to be an elaborate hoax, carefully designed to give hope to the malnourished and desperate denizens of the bunker, while in the meantime the dome that separates their miserable existence from the nuclear winter outside is slowly caving in.　　What first striked me about the movie is the design of the bunker and the depiction of the survivors. The survivors are gaunt, filthy and terrible-looking penitents, dressed in rags and aimlessly wandering the neon-lit halls of the bunker like automatons. The bunker is a rundown, seedy place, with bright neon lights peering from all sides like the eyes of malignant beasts.　　On one hand it is a slightly 80's depiction of the dystopian future but the movie never stoops down to MAD MAX cheese. Instead it combines biting political satire with the bleak outlook of a world with no future, black comedy with barbs on apathy, religion and power. The survivors, for example, are fed some kind of flour dropping from a tube that hovers in the air - later on we discover the food supervisor uses books and the Bible itself as filler for this meagre meal. There are many such short symbolic touches, perhaps not life-changing or faith-restoring, yet playful, clever and inspired.　　One thing is for sure; O-BI, O-BA is not your run-of-the-mill sci-fi schlock. It overcomes its modest budget with creativity and has genuine artistic aspirations both from a writing and directing perspective. My opinion is that it should have been filmed in black and white instead of colour though. The director uses atmospheric light and shadow to great effect and it would have registered even better in stark black and white. The blue-green neon on the other hand outstays its welcome after a while. Just a minor gripe in an otherwise solid b-movie with its heart set in all the right places.　　Imagine a less bleak THE ROAD (Cormac McCarthy) being injected with the satire and humour of DR.STRANGELOVE and you're getting there. See it if you can find it.