The Cinematheque

“With The Trap, Hayashi looks both forwards and back by adopting some of the surrealism found in the latter work of Suzuki, such as the Taisho trilogy, while embracing the sense of nihilistic despair that took hold in [mid-’90s] Japan.”

Hayley Scanlon, Sight and Sound

The ominous final chapter of Hayashi Kaizo’s trilogy opens in a promising light as Maiku has turned a new corner: business is booming, his sister’s been accepted into college, and he’s in love (for once) with the mute and angelic Yuriko (Natsukawa Yui, Still Walking). Hayashi’s love story is countervailed by a new terror when a series of serial killings, all connected to a disquieting figure with a masked visage, begins to instill fear in Yokohama. Young women have been found dead, injected with poison and left as ​“sleeping beauties”—dressed up with tranquil countenances while accompanied by the faint redolence of woodland fragrance. Sharing DNA with some of Dario Argento’s most outré gialli and possessing a nihilistic edge influenced by the contemporaneous Aum Shinrikyo attacks, Hayashi’s harrowing finale spins a hallucinatory descent into darkness as Maiku finds himself assailed by a frightening opponent deep within the bowels of the city. —Japan Society

In Japanese with English subtitles