Tentacle-Free Anime: "King of Thorn" (2009) ReviewAnd we're officially back to our regular, bi-weekly time slot! The next 100 reviews are going to be filled with some great stuff, and I'll be more focused on finishing up some ongoing narratives that I began in the first 100 that I never got around to concluding. Also, expect more TFA extras. So stay tuned, and let's get this show on the road!
That summary sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? It's not a bad premise really, it's just all a matter of the execution. Sadly by the time you're finished watching this film, you may end up wanting to execute yourself. In just over an hour I went from “this isn't bad” to “what the hell am I watching,” in this Resident Evil redux that does a terrible job to its source.
Honestly, as far as the movie is concerned, it's not all bad. There really are some shining moments that stand out, it's simply that they're too few given the overall package. The music, for one thing, is gorgeous. I have a history of loving the music in shows or films that I heavily dislike (see: Aldnoah.Zero and Final Fantasy Unlimited) and that tradition is kept alive here. The scores are haunting and melancholic that sets the mood for this survival horror game. The characters aren't bad when you finally stat getting to know them, it's just all of them end up fulfilling a pre-destined purpose as we find out later in the film and thus we usually tend to learn more about them as individuals too late in the film, or some just aren't given enough time. They're used as tropes and I can look no further than to use the “Little Boy,” or Timothy as we learn what his name is way too late into the film, of the group who spends most of it likening the monsters and areas of the castle (yeah, this film takes place in a castle) to a video game he's seen playing at the beginning of the film. 
"The CGI scenes are not good"
So several monsters are given names like “Deathbats” and “Demonsaurus” and the kid knows their weaknesses as well. It's sort of explained later with a throwaway line as to why he knows so much information about the creatures, but it's still grating to have someone one the team know exactly what they're up against when none of these people have seen them before. The film also plays like a base under siege film, which not only am I not really a fan of those types of stories, but I feel it undercuts what could have been a really cool global, country-spanning or even city-spanning story by whittling it all down to a castle. Especially after the film opens with 3 years worth of information being thrown at us as to how the Medusa Virus is effecting the world at large. But once the “real story” begins, we forget all about the world and are left with a dismal castle story and never once do we learn what happened to the human race. King of Thorn also shows off major budgetary restraints throughout its runtime, which often isn't something I complain about because a lot of anime does that. I'm personally not a huge fan of 3D/2D integration, because often times the transitions can look really bad, but depending on how I walk away feeling about the story of the anime I can generally look past it. Not so with this one. The 3D/2D integration is awful looking and really stands out – most of time when the characters are rendered in 3D in scenes that literally don't require them to be. As well as overusing stock sound effects that can be heard in other films. The designs of the monsters don't often look that good, either. The Deathbats, for instance, literally have testicles for legs. And the titular King of Thorn is a giant brambled dragon that protrudes from the castle and becomes this awkward looking thing that physically looks like the castle with a dragon head. It's terrible. 
"What even is this beast"
I will give the movie one beacon of light: the blood and gore. The film does have a lot of blood and gore in it and in that respect it's done well. We actually do get to see people torn apart and eaten alive, blood splatters everywhere, and our cast is generally dwindled down to a few in gruesome ways. So in that respect, the horror factor of the film is effective. Again, I would have liked to have seen this world dealing with these monsters on a much bigger scale rather than seeing them confined to a single castle and then never learning whether or not these kind of creatures are in fact plaguing the Earth. Finally, we're going to discuss the some of the actual story elements, like the overarching theme which is detailed to us throughout the film in excruciating narration. The story tries to tie heavily into the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty and we're beat over the head with it as the characters narrate the entire story, as well as openly discuss it amongst themselves in many scenes. It's grating, and I'm not a fan of when characters do this. It's especially funny, however, when one of the characters starts narrating the story and then it leads to a scene where she continues that narration by speaking it out loud in an open auditorium while a live television speech is going on. And not in the way where she's quietly talking to herself! No, she's speaking loud enough that everyone can hear her even if no one pays her any mind. I also find it oddly coincidental that every character seems to know this variation of Sleeping Beauty by heart, so that at no point does anyone feel left out when the story is actively brought up while the group is exploring. Of course there's a lot of conveniences like that throughout the story, like how most of the characters automatically know how to use the lab computers within the castle even though they've never touched one before. This admittedly loose connection to Sleeping Beauty is brought “full circle” if you will at the crux of the film when our main character, Kasumi, finds out the “secret” to why all of this is happening around the castle. It involves a bunch of mind effing trickery that generally I am a huge fan of, but when it's not really fully explained in a satisfactory way, and then feels like it undermines what's supposed to be going on in the rest of the world, I can only groan and shake my head at what the storytellers are trying to pull with their revelations. 
"Literal testicles for legs"
I won't go into detail about the end, but the story tries very, very hard to make you think that everything you thought you knew was a lie. And technically the story is correct in that, but the answers to all these make little sense when the crux of the revelations hinders on the idea of “alternatives” made from those suffering from the Medusa Virus, which is only brought up once before in the film and not very well explained even then. King of Thorn in all honesty has some good ideas, and when it begins you may find yourself going “this isn't that bad,” only to find yourself then seeping into madness as you question every decision the storytellers and the characters make throughout the movie. It happened with me, and then I showed a friend who's big into survival horror stories and even he did the exact same thing. I wish I could say this movie is worth your time, but it's simply not. And I hate that. Final Score: 1.5 Sleeping Not-So-Beauties out of 5 Have you been subjected to King of Thorn yet? Let us know down below! 
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