NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE (Japan, 2006)
Directed by: Shinya Tsukamoto
Starring: Ryuhei Matsuda, Hitomi, Ando Masanobu, Ren Osugi, Shinya Tsukamoto
“Be prepared for not just the usual goose bumps, but a viral infection of your dream life. Sales of the DVD ought to come with a "do not view before bedtime" advisory label.” – Mark Schilling, Japan Times

What do you get when you put Japan’s aggressively provocative director/writer/editor/actor/cinematographer, Shinya Tsukamoto, creator of worldwide artsploitation extravaganzas like Tetsuo: the Iron Man, A Snake in June and Vital at the helm of a well-financed mainstream movie? Mix in J-pop starlette Hitomi, teen idol Ando Masanobu and cult film stalwart Ren Osugi and you wind up with NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE, a cockeyed riff on the X-Files that reads like it was written by a sleep-deprived, cocaine-fueled Sigmund Freud and translated into Japanese by a techno otaku with a head full of nightmares.

Keiko (Hitomi) is a paper-pushing yuppie cop who's desperate to hit the streets and prove her courage, but on her first day she’s shuffled off to find a psychic to assist in investigating some suspiciously nasty suicides. Urban legends lead her to Kyoichi (Ryuhei Matsuda), the nightmare detective, whom she meets just as he is trying to kill himself...again. Kyoichi can walk through dreams but dreams are horrible places to be and he's so burnt out that he’d rather be dead. He hates his talent, he hates people, and he especially hates Keiko. But there are worse things than an annoying cop out to jump-start her career, things like a self-mutilating psychic vampire who seems to be at the heart of this suicide plague (played by Shinya Tsukamoto himself). There’s a monster inside all of us, hidden deep down the crumbling concrete hallways of our minds. It whispers to us that we should just give up and end it all, and in this movie, if you don’t listen to this monster’s sick urgings it’s going to come after you with its razor blade fingers and its chittering, knife-sized teeth.