Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

In terms of special effects and effective moments of creepiness, it works fairly well. The depiction of Kuchisake Onna won't disappoint if you are familiar with the urban legend and have imagined her in your own mind's eye.

However, and because we get a pretty good look at her early on in the movie, she ceases to appear so menacing. In my opinion, the mask shouldn't have come off until much later in the film, allowing the audience to build a sense of dread as to what's beneath.

The pacing is uneven, sluggish at times, and the "twist" ending appears forced. In terms of running time, it could very well have ended 15 minutes earlier and wouldn't have made much of a difference.

If one tales the time to pick up any good book on Japanese folklore, one would quickly learn that Japan is a country that possesses some of the most inventive and spooky stories concerning ghosts and monsters. One such creature is the Slit-Mouth Woman. Supposedly way back during the Heian era, 794-1185 A.D., there was a woman who was married to a warrior who was well known for her beauty. Haughty and brash, the woman cheated on her husband who then proceeded to split her mouth open from ear to ear. Deeply entrenched in the Japanese psyche, In 1979, tales spread of a woman who came out of foggy days sporting a surgical mask, which are common for Japanese to wear when they catch colds, and in a hoarse voice she would ask "Watashi kirei?" and if answered "yes" she would remove her mask revealing her horribly disfigured face and ask "and now?" Such a scene often ended with the slit-mouth woman killing her victims, mainly children, with a large, razor-sharp pair of sisters.

With his film Carved: A Slit-Mouth Woman, horror film director Shiraishi Koji revives the legend of the Slit-Mouth Woman in the figure of Matsuzaki Taeko, a sickly, horribly abusive mother who disappeared many years ago. With her long hair, trench coat, deathly pale skin, and deadpan eyes, Taeko's first victim is a young boy. Children are abuzz with info and rumors about the Slit-Mouth Woman, but are ignored by adults. At least they are ignored until one day the young teacher Yamashita Kyoko witnesses one of her students, a girl named Miki who suffers abuse inflicted upon her by her mother, being caught by the horrible apparition of Taeko.

Carved: A Slit-Mouth Woman is a disturbing film. The violence and gore are pretty tame because, like a good number of Japanese horror films, the violence takes place off screen, and the figure of Taeko is not as creepy as some other baddies in Japanese horror films. What makes Carved a disturbing film is that the victims are children and Taeko truly makes them suffer with the blades of her scissors and the repeated beatings she gives them. However, Taeko is not the only monster in the film. A few mothers, while not slicing and dicing their children, abuse them when their anger hits the apex and it is their negativity and hatred that summons Taeko, the epitome of hate and abuse into their town which although nice on the outside is rotten to the core with dark secrets within.