"Imprint" is the worst Miike film I've seen. And I've seen lots. And liked most of 'em.

I do tend to prefer the earlier works - Nostalghia, Ley Lines, Rainy Dog, Bird People in China - but I also really love Audition, Visitor Q, Gozu, and Box. I thought "Imprint" had some elements in common with "Box" and "Gozu", with a bit of "Audition" to boot, and so it's especially sad that it does. not. work. at all.

And while the torture scenes left me a bit squeamish, I can't for the life of me understand how Showtime felt they couldn't show this based on content. If they'd pulled it based on quality... that I would understand.

My god man... Billy Drago is painfully bad, at least in a role that requires believable emoting. The man was out-acted by non-English speaking actors reciting their lines phonetically. And they sucked.

This film should have been aborted.

Richard, if you think this is Miike's worst film, you clearly haven't seen The City of Lost Souls. The acting in that film makes Billy Drago look like an Oscar winner.

"City of Lost Souls" was one of the first Miike's I saw, and it was very, very weak compared to my other intro-to-Miike titles (Audition, Katakuris, Visitor Q). I can take the cheese - even DOA-III and Fudoh: New Generation - and I can even tolerate "Izo" and "Ichi" to some extent, though both are ultimately poorly realized/conceived films. But I can't recall any other Miike film that I consider such a total failure as "Imprint".

Finally saw Imprint last night and it looks like I'm in the minority of loving it. Not only was it, so far, the best looking entry of the MOH series, but also the most visually enthralling project Miike has made lately.

I admit the last recent films I've seen by him (Izo,One Missed Call,3 Extremes) did leave me underwhelmed, but since he makes so many damn movies a year, I knew he would rebound eventually.

(Now on to defend the nitpicking)

I didn't expect Imprint to be entirely spoken in english. And I didn't expect to see Santa Sangre spoken in english either. But you know what? I didn't need a lot of dialogue to figure out what was going on in both of those movies. Like I said, Imprint visually got it's point across the way a silent film would. Hell, just pretend that Billy Drago isn't saying his lines in english either!

And then there's those who just don't get the story. Imprint simply had a structure similar to Rashomon with a few wild turns in the end. And apparently there's still too many Westerners who are clueless about Shinto beliefs concerning spirits and Kappas. Once you're familiar with the folklore of Japanese ghost stories, the task of figuring out what's going on becomes easier. So maybe there just hasn't been enough exposure for us to learn more about the basics of these tales.

Imprint was overhyped on the "Banned" bandwagon. It looks like guys were just expecting to see barrels of intestines getting thrown around and what not. But the objectionable violence turned out to be the baby-killing and prostitute-torture scenes. Both were surprising because we just don't get to see sequences like these too often. So I can believe if Showtime just wasn't ready to give the "go" for something like this (I'll add another "That made me squeamish" vote for a bit of that torture violence)

The first two of season 2 are duds so far IMHO...

I didn't care for the first one, but enjoyed the second installment.

It was better than the first... but I was expecting so much more since I signed up for Showtime just to watch this series... However Dexter is a nice suprise bonus...

Oh dear Gawd.

I've seen 3 of these eps in the past few weeks and they all sucked ass big time. I mean come on, it's one thing to build up tension, it's another thing to draw out a boring story to fill 50+ minutes.

All 3 seemed like amatuer 80's horror night. None of them were in the least bit scary and sfx were the same old shit I've seen 1000's of times before.

Yep, season 2 is utter garbage, 3 stinkers in a row.

I really liked the first two. The third wasn't great though.

My 2nd post in a row here and it's the opposite from y'all!

Granted, the 3rd was no masterpiece, but it's still a step-up from Garris' last outing fron the previous season. I know, he only wrote it, but still...

I do agree that we are overdue for some boobage.

I wasn't impressed with the 3rd installment either. So far, pretty much on par with season 1 (which is not a good thing).

My problem with this series is actually the title, they claim that is from the Master's of Horror; when each story does not really have much to do with actual horror just gore.

I am looking forward to the episode called Pro-Life. It stars Ron Perlman and is directed by John Carpenter. It will be interesting to see their creative talents at work.

Did you catch Brad Anderson's episode ... no onscreen violence whatsoever (like his other work, the horror is psychological). I've noticed that there's been a distinct lack of nudity/sex this season too. Last year it almost seemed they were forcing things a bit. Wanting to get in gore and nudity (but not too much, or you get Miike-ed) over the quality of the stories themselves. Kind of like the early days of HBO's "The Hitchhiker" where the producers had a hard time getting away from the "We can show boobies!" mentality.

Carpenter's ep should be good. A big consistent problem I've noticed with the series is that they don't seem to know how to use the 60 minutes well. The stories mostly feel like a 30-minute ep stretched out, and less commonly we'll go the other way feeling like an edited-down feature. And yeah, the quality of the "masters" is all over the place. But the show is a lot better once you lower your expectations to just a new horror anthology series, rather than expecting masterpieces every week.

I love the collabaration between the actors and directors. The series is an anthology that pays homage to the horror genre and the directors who have paved the way for future tv productions.

Which one is his? I have only seen the first three of this season so far...

Anderson's episode is "Sounds Like," the fourth episode. I thought it was quite good, similar in tone and atmosphere to the Machinist, and one of the only ones from either season that didn't feel cut from identical cloth. Whether Showtime allowed him more freedom or he simply opted to use more of his own people, I don't know, but it definitely comes off almost as a seperate entity from the series entirely.

I liked Brad's installment.

It was a fat turd. Worst of the season. I found the first 3 episodes fairly enjoyable, but this Carpenter episode was so heavy handed and so damn obvious that there was no enjoyment to be had for me. Hopefully Argento's episode, which I DVRd, will be better.

Carpenter's installment was pretty bad. A big let-down for me. Argento's Pelts was better, IMO.

"Pelts" did have the gore and boobage going for it. Would've been a terrific 30-minute "Tales From the Crypt" story. Just not enough meat on the story for stretching out to 60 minutes. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be funny or not. The over-the-top cliched characters and crazy gore prevented any real suspense or scares for me, but I didn't notice any clear signs of the filmmakers playing it for laughs.

Next week Joe Dante is back. Looks to be an apocalyptic horror story, which I have a soft spot for. On the other hand, Dante's past suggests another "horror-comedy", which I've seen enough of in MoH (especially last season).

fuuuk!
Storywise, "Pelts" was flat. But damn, it's been a while...I mean, a while since I've seen some gore effects that actually made me flinch. Most gruesome ep I've seen yet!

KNB outdid the hell out themselves with that one!

"Pelts" almost redeemed this terrible season. It was gory, damn gory! Man I loved it.

It's a "Hit & Miss" Collection but, I enjoy it, as a whole!!! The Top 3 Stories (For ME), are ....JENIFER, Incinent & Deer Women !!! I haven't seen the last two, releases.