Japan, 85 minutes, Directed by Kenichi Ugana

An obsessive, psychopathically perfectionist furniture designer takes his desire to create the perfect chair to truly… excessive lengths.

I hope you’re sitting down for this one (buh-boom-tshhh!). Incomplete Chairs from Kenichi Ugana has been my favourite film of Grimmfest so far.

The gore in this film is absolutely exquisite and Incomplete Chairs doesn’t waste any time, it gets straight into it. Within about 10 minutes, there’s an absolutely beautifully disgusting POV shot that is just… *chef’s kiss*. The camera does cut away at times, with a delightful juxtaposition of squelchy gore sounds with beautiful blue skies and fluffy white clouds. But thankfully, Ugana always delivers another dose of disgusting gore right after. It’s what we deserve.

I’ve never considered chairs so much – there’s lots of talk of the “chair industry” and I genuinely don’t think I’ll ever look at chairs in the same way again. Grimmfest likens Incomplete Chairs to American Psycho (amongst other excellent comparisons – go read their write up!) and the lead character definitely has Patrick Bateman energy. Handsome, charming, composed when he needs to be and also, utterly, utterly unhinged. 

I will absolutely be revisiting this film often and would love to own a copy on Blu-ray. I’m gutted I missed the chance to see it on the big screen, I’m sure it looked and sounded so squelchy and delicious.

Hi Kenichi, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I LOVED Incomplete Chairs. Can you tell us about the plot of the film?

Thank you. This movie is about making chairs out of human materials lol

It’s brutal, bloody and I had so much fun watching it. Where did the inspiration come from?

I think it’s true all over the world, but I’ve felt that the social media environment in Japan has become excessive in recent years, and I wanted to express what would happen if strangers’ unreasonable verbal abuse were replaced with actual violence.

I’ve never thought so much about chairs, who designs them and how they are made until I watched Incomplete Chairs. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a chair the same way again!

Many of the chairs we use are also dead trees.

Touche! The practical effects in the movie are absolutely amazing and the gore is incredible. It must have been an incredibly messy shoot – did you come up against any problems on set, with so much blood and gore?

The hardest part was finding a house where we could shoot the blood. In the end, we used my grandma’s house as the location lol

Incomplete chairs is a very stylish, beautifully shot film, which is such a strong juxtaposition with the limbs and viscera. Did any movies inspire the look of the film?

He didn’t mention any specific movie names, but I think he said he wanted the visuals to be similar to those of Cronenberg, as I’m a big fan of his films.

Grimmfest says Incomplete Chairs is a “mischievous mash up of AMERICAN PSYCHO, Lars Von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, the films of Takeshi Miike”, which I think is a perfect description. Did you draw any inspiration from Harron, Von Trier or Miike?

I’m a big fan of theirs, so they’ve always had a big influence on me. However, I tried not to be too conscious of other works when writing this film. However, when I started writing the script, I was somewhat conscious of “Angst.” In the end, it turned out to be a completely different work.

I love to talk about people’s favourite movies – what’s your favourite? Do you have a favourite sub-genre of horror? 

This may come as a surprise to you, but my favorite movie these days is Béla Tarr’s “Sátántangó.” I love all the horror subgenres, but I’ve recently gotten back into watching zombie movies.

What can we expect from you next? You’ve now shown two of your movies at Grimmfest – can we hope for a third next year?

I love Grimmfest, so it would be a great honor to be screened there again. I finished my new film two weeks ago, a body horror about a family. I’m also shooting a sci-fi action musical romantic comedy next month, and another horror film next year. Please look forward to it.

Thanks Kenichi! I love musicals too, so that sounds incredible! Plus, I can’t wait to see what horror you cook up next!