(Exte) Hair Extensions

Revolver Entertainment

R2 DVD

Sion Sono is a controversial Japanese avant-garde poet and filmmaker who is best known for his cult classic Suicide Circle. Exte aka Hair Extensions is a truly enigmatic film filled with irony, satirical commentary, dark comedy and horror. The stage is set in a truly saccharine sweet sort-of-way as Yuko tells us about her life working as an apprentice at the Gilles de Rais hair salon. (A strange choice of name to say to least since Gilles De Rais was a notorious French Satanist and child killer).

At the same time police find a cargo carton filled with hair and more ominously a body. When the body is examined it is found to have had all its organs removed and it seems likely the woman was the victim of international organ trafficking. However there is somewhat very anomalous about this cadaver, it constantly produces hair. The local morgue is supervised by misogynist hair fetishist Yamazaki and when he sees what the corpse can do decides to steal her for himself. In the privacy of his home Yamazaki finds the corpse produces hair from every orifice and incision and with glee gloats in his new found object of affection.

Yuko comes home from work and finds her older sister Kiyomi has left her child Mami with her. While Kiyomi used to abuse Yuko when she was young, she has now turned her vicious streak on Mami. Many of these scenes are the more difficult of the film as it explores the neglect and abuse Kiyomi inflicts on her child. The lives of Yamazaki and Yuko intersect when he seems Mami on the street and falls in love with her hair. He is an extremely creepy fellow but when he donates hair extensions to the Gilles De Rais Salon as samples they are happy to take advantage of his seeming kindness. After a confrontation with Yuko and a female friend who may or may not be her partner, Mami stays with Yuko but you know trouble is store from Kiyomi.

These hair extensions are not your typical fashion accessory, since they are the result of a violent death they takes revenge on those who use them and soon terrible deaths occur to those who use the extensions. A hairdresser slaughters her client and then herself and in quite an astounding scene one of the workers at the Gilles De Rais Salon experiences firsthand what the hair can do. With gruesome relish we see hair growing out of her eyes, an incision in her arm and then out of her head dragging the poor girl into the air; it then retreats into the body and rushing throughout her body under her skin kills her.

When Yuko and her roommate are out the house, Kiyomi fools Mami into letting her in. She steals whatever she can lay her hands on (including the hair extensions), and thrashes the place as well as Mami, she then returns to the trashy home where she lives with her boyfriend. She again beats up Mami and shoves her in a closet. The hair extensions spring to life and attack and kill Kiyomi and her lover. Mami only barely escapes by jumping over the balcony. She winds up in hospital and becomes part of Yuko’s family.

Things go from bad to worse when Yuko uses the extensions on her friend and Mami and soon a battle unfolds in which the lives of those Yuko holds closest are put on the line.

Hair Extensions is a truly eccentric work of cinema including twisted and bizarre scenes of hair fetishism, a powerful and uncomfortable portrayal of child abuse and lots of gore and horror. The CGI of the hair extensions in action is impressive and the shocking imagery of the organ harvesting accompanied by Xmas music will haunt you for quite some time. In the U.S this was released by Tokyo Shock while in the U.K. it was released through Revolver Entertainment.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 3 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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