New Group

by Hope Madden

In 2023, Yûta Shimotsu took a queasying look into obedience with Best Wishes to All. As the smalltown folk horror morphed from one subgenre to the next, the audience felt the same bewilderment facing the beleaguered heroine.

Disobey, that’s the theme of Best Wishes to All, as well as Shimotsu’s second feature, New Group. Quiet high school student Ai (Anna Yamada) doesn’t rock the boat. She wants to go unnoticed, not get left behind.

But conformity in Ai’s high school amplifies. Soon, bullies and cliques make way for absurd compliance with authority manifesting as giant gymnastic formations including a human pyramid 20 people high.

Though the symbolism in New Group is far tidier and more heavy handed than in Shimotsu’s previous effort, the film offers an alarming take on the loss of individuality. It begins with Ai’s nightmares of mindlessly violent behavior in an attempt for a viral video. Though the group think and desensitization of the digital age has its place in New Group, Shimotsu’s aim seems more trained on larger ideas concerning Japanese culture.

Fitting, then, that it’s Yu (Aoki Yuzu), a new student who’s been studying in America before being dumped back home by inattentive parents, whose introduction sparks Ai’s burgeoning courage. His entrance also corresponds with news of a sound being emitted from deep space.

Shimotsu’s imagery is arresting. The human pyramid composed of identically dressed students is alarmingly precise and almost beautiful. The other gymnastic formations tend to be wilder and darkly comical. Comedic, too, is the figure of the school principal (Pierre Taki). Though the veteran has few scenes, he relishes the authority figure’s power trip.

There are additional layers and wild turns, but New Group‘s theme is clear and the climax inevitable. Best Wishes for All delivered a creepier and certainly less predictable outcome, but Shimotsu’s second feature is a reminder that Japanese horror has never stopped being vital.