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In Tokyo, Detective Sekiya (Ren Ôsugi) investigates the death of two suicides with Detective Wakamiya (Masanobu Ando) and the rookie Detective Keiko Kirishima (Hitomi). Both victims were stabbed while sleeping and the skeptical and experienced Sekiya concludes that they have committed suicide. However, Wakamiya discovers that both victims had dialed "0" on their cell-phones before their death and they recorded a weird message. The police officers believe that someone is inducing potential suicidal persons to kill themselves, but the chief of police decides to split the team and assigns Keiko to find a medium to help the police in the investigation. She meets Kyoichi Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), who is also a suicidal man with the ability to enter in the dreams, and tries to force the reluctant man to help her.

"Akumu Tantei", a.k.a. "Nightmare Detective", is a stylish thriller with a character that recalls Freddy Krueger since he attacks his victims in their dreams. The sexy Hitomi performs a detective that in a certain moment fights to stay awake, recalling for example, Kristen Parker in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise. Despite having a wonderful cinematography, the unoriginal screenplay is very confused and I expected much more from a movie directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Caçador de Pesadelos" ("Nightmare Hunter")

What a letdown. When I first heard about this film, the premise of a 'nightmare detective' battling a serial killer within the victims' dream state seemed immensely appealing. And it being directed by the man responsible for the brilliant Tetsuo sealed the deal!! How would he spin the concept differently than Wes Craven's Elm Street series? But then, the misgivings started to creep in. Its being released by Dimension EXTREME stateside. Ugh. Could a more trend pandering and generic name for a releasing company even be possible? And unfortunately, the film itself is just as trend pandering. Stylistically, Tsukamoto blends every flashy aesthetic technique that is currently trendy: desaturated colors mixed in with scenes filmed through saturated color filters that come and go at random, uninspired Paul Greengrass type shaky camera-work/zooming being just a few examples. Aesthetics aside, the narrative is depressingly conventional and straightforward for the likes of a Tsukamoto. An interesting connection between the state of dreaming and death arises but is treated superficially and seems thrown in just so the killer can make creepy and twisted little monologues. But the film's main weakness is in the casting. Matsuda's emo, brooding, hair in his face 'nightmare detective' aimlessly mopes around through the whole film in perpetual angst. Why so glum, chum? Angst does not equal profound. And newcomer hitomi, while very easy on the eyes, is just completely unconvincing as the star detective who elicits Matsuda's supernatural talents to track down the killer. I also tried to concoct some sort of profound metacommentary for Tsukamoto's self casting but failed. I give this 2 stars because, despite all I wrote above, there are a few genuinely startling and well shot moments that demonstrate Tsukamoto's reputation as one of the greats of J-horror. I hear that this was a "for hire" job for him and unfortunately, it shows.

Visually this movie is really good. I was able to watch it at a theatre in Stuttgart as part of the "Fantasy Filmfest Nights" that take place every year in the spring (for a few years now) for quite some time now.

While this movie tries to mix paranormal and normal things together it does not achieve this goal entirely. This movie does have a few good scares (and it is bloody violent too, so be prepared for that), but you're never really emotionally attached to the main characters. The problem here lies within the characterization. You do see people get hurt here, but it's not like you get to know them to really care. Even if they are "only" in danger (you have to see the movie to see if there any false scares here, although if you have watched some horror movies, you will be able to foresee a few things), you're not really worried about them. You just wait for a shock to happen ...

When all is said and done (the end of the movie), you might be left with the feeling that there could've been more ... been done with the material (idea)!

The premise caught me and I was on my way to watch it on DVD. It is haunting creepy and very violent. This violent thriller/fantasy had me stayed up for a night. The director had the story that looks like real. That scared me, pondering on the main theme of this, "suicide". After the thrilling violent suicides, you will find that violence is the least point you take note, it is the brutal violence, the idea on suicide when you just think about it. So it pretty got me like straight to the brain.

The story shows the first bloody suicide and Keiko (Hitomi), a cop transferred is discovering the first suicide. She realises that it is no ordinary suicide but the other police thinks the other way. Then it shows the second suicide, the non-stop stabbing on the neck, the dead man's wife told them that it is like that he was in a nightmare which is true. They found that "O" is the one who killed them. They want the mysterious guy who can go to people's dreams, played by Ryuhei Matsuda, but he says that he don't want to go to people's dreams anymore. Until when one of cop calls "O" and awaits for death. He can't be saved. Keiko calls "O" and wants to arrest him because she wants to save more victims falling into his hands. From there, the thrilling "race" of not sleeping starts. It may be confusing but I am able to understand it. Be warned of very shaky scenes where you can't even see what is happening.

Overall : It will seduce you to its dark mystery and from there, you will find it hard to take your eyes from the screen. The director did it with a sense of humour and dark mystery. It is very bloody but soon it is not the point.

The Singaporean DVD consists of TV spots, trailers and some boring stuff. There is not even a making of. The DVD is rated M-18.

For some reason I anticipated a noir work here or the perversion of it, a Lynchian narrative where dreams are the scene of the crime. It didn't bother me that it's not, but it did bother me that it's a hodge podge of ideas.

Most of all it stands out as a Paprika played out as a cop thriller, sometimes a J-horror, even rarely a Tsukamoto film. It's weird but half- or ill-formed, not in the sense that we're watching an elipsis where details are absent of explanation as part of a design, but in the sense that it wasn't really thought out or it was believed the concept of a serial killer visiting his victims in their sleep would carry it. We even get the mandatory scene where the cop heroine fights to stay awake and is terrified to realize she isn't. This is the first letdown, that Tsukamoto doesn't realize he's in a whole other league than Wes Craven.

Often with Tsukamoto the ideas he presents are largely frameworks, explorations in a general direction. He doesn't probe deeply but what appeals to me is the fascinating artifice of that exploration, the frame itself. This one has a cheap TV look and an annoying overabundance of whip zooms in and out of convalescent images, again for no apparent reason.

The ending, as with the parting shot of Vital, is rather marvellous though. Against a meaningless universe, lives without purpose or direction, Tsukamoto gives us a collage of small intimate moments. The bittersweet nature of this final hold against the existential void, is that what he offers us is memory, the empty shell of something come and gone played out for comfort in the mind.

Perhaps this reveals Tsukamoto's limitation as a filmmaker, in this and other films. It's great that he sees that far, into a vision of humanity which is further than most directors doing horror related work are capable of, it's a pity that he doesn't see further.

First of all, I've never seen a Shinya Tsukamoto movie before this. I read reviews commenting on how this is his most unoriginal work, and I really can't confirm or deny that. As a standalone piece, however, I can say this is completely unlike any other detective movie I've ever seen—and it does so without cheese. On a technical level, does that make it original? Not necessarily, but it certainly isn't unoriginal either. Either way, it's very entertaining and interesting, and as I just said, lacks the cheese that the majority of supernatural horror films have lately.

The reason it lacks cheese is because Nightmare Detective builds up layers of gritty reality through mainly being a comic (but not comical) detective mystery. This gives a lot more weight to the supernatural elements, and creates a lot cooler tone. I've seen people bash the detective elements of the story, but I personally thought they were genius. The idea of having two detectives, one a police detective and the other a dream detective working together was very cool. Like I said, the idea isn't wholesale original, but it's certainly different and very well done.

Shinya Tsukamoto's camera-work and cinematography left me in awe more than once. The man knows how to direct. The entire movie has the best production value I've ever seen in an Asian movie, and I've seen a lot of Asian movies. The detail is crisp, and sometimes with color washout that completed the gritty, dirty comic book tone. The dream sequences are not all-out surrealism as would be cliché, but have subtle nods at surrealism while being otherwise realistic. Once again, genius.

I've read reviews that trash this movie for not being scary. Simply put: what movie IS scary anymore? I've seen hundreds of horror movies, and I can count the ones that were honestly scary on one hand. I can't compare this to Shinya Tsukamoto's other works, as I said, but from what I take, this is a step down on the level of terror. Fine. Why is that bad? A movie that exists only to be scary is just like a movie that exists just to be gory—it's hallow. The Exorcist is quoted as "the scariest movie of all time", but when I watched it I wasn't scared once. The thing is, the level of terror in a movie is mainly relative. Is Nightmare Detective scary? Some will think so. Did I? To an extent, yes.

As far as the acting goes, I didn't notice it being good or bad. As for the level of boredom, it isn't very fast paced but it will keep your interest until the end, which is something I can't say about many movies. Dialogue is standard, and never too excessive, which is another plus. The music is unoffensive and unnoticeable, except where Shinya Tsukamoto uses some really cool mellow songs to underline the mood, and it works very well.

Overall, it's very much worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of mystery graphic novels, because it carries the same feel and flow. I'd even go as far as to say it's worth a buy. It did what it wanted to accomplish, and even if Shinya Tsukamoto's other works are better than this, I don't see how anyone would be disappointed.

4/10

The premise of "Nightmare Detective" is very interesting:A Japanese detective investigates two mysterious and very bloody suicides,somehow connected as the two victims dialed "0" on their mobiles moments before their death.The detective comes to learn of a man who has the supposed ability to manipulate people's dreams and if the case is going to be solved the detective succumbs to the realization that she must dial the mysterious "0" herself..."Nightmare Detective" is the film about dreams,alternate realities and suicides in Japan.The viewer will be trapped in a myriad of dreams within dreams and alternating worlds.Too much shaky camera movements sometimes irritated me,but the visuals are splendid and the suicides are quite disturbing with lots of blood spilled.As a fan of Tsukamoto's unique visions I wasn't disappointed with "Nightmare Detective".

Probably the most conventional film Shinya Tsukamoto has directed. Really, it would only take a couple of tiny clichés for that to happen, since every other film he has made is so utterly unconventional. Nightmare Detective is sort of a police procedural. Detectives are investigating two apparent suicides that seem to have killed themselves while dreaming. It turns out both of these people had called the same number shortly before they died, and the detectives believe that the owner of this number, known as 0 (zero), may have had something to do with the deaths. The detectives, through some huge logical jumps, also seek out a man known as the nightmare detective (Ryuhei Matsuda of Taboo), who has the power to enter dreams. The killer (Shinya Tsukamoto) also has this power. The major cliché that bothers me most is that of the hot, young female detective, played by a relative newcomer known only as Hitomi, who has to prove herself to her male co-workers. It's very boring, and, as cute as she is, Hitomi isn't a very good actress, at least not here. My educated guess is that Ms. Hitomi started her career as a model, and was later drafted into acting. There's also the whole cell phone angle, which has already been done by Miike in One Last Call. I admit I have skipped out on that one even though Miike is one of my favorite directors. It's just corny. It also doesn't help that both the hot detective and the cell phone-inspired deaths instantly bring to mind the recent comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which used both of these themes to provide major laughs. And I'm sure no one who made that movie had ever seen Nightmare Detective. Still, even having written a mediocre script, Tsukamoto could never lose his talent for direction. And the direction is very Tsukamoto. When Tsukamoto attacks in the nightmares, he appears as a deformed monster that is only half-seen. The visuals are eerily beautiful and I really liked the music, too. All in all, it's a pretty good horror flick. It's the first part of a trilogy, the second of which should be released in Japan later this year. Hitomi is not a part of it, so I'll keep my hopes up.

..because, honestly, what passes for horror in Japan just isn't very scary.

The plot line here is that someone is inducing people to kill themselves in brutal ways, and a police officer named Keiko is trying to get to the bottom of it with the help of a psychic dude.

Three things the Japanese can't seem to do. 1) Anything really scary 2) Anything really sensual (I guess there is supposed to be sexual tension between the psychic dude and Keiko, but darned if I can see it.) 3) anything really coherent in terms of plot.

This movie is a trudge to work through, and not just because of the language. The focus should have been on the psychic character (Japanese seem to have more of a belief in psychics than Americans do.) Instead, it was on this rather shallow detective character.

There are the visual dream sequences, but to be honest, we've seen better stuff in Freddy Krueger movies from 20 years ago.

Shinya Tsukamoto directs and plays the bad guy in this supernatural thriller, and even though I liked it pretty much, it doesn't stand up well against his other classics. People are dying horrible bloody suicides which seem connected to a recent cell phone conversation they had with a person identified as "O". A beautiful female detective takes over the case, and meets up with a guy that has the ability to enter other people's dreams. Not a novel or original story idea by Tsukamoto, but it's still pretty interesting. When the lady detective makes a call to "O" which dooms her, she calls upon the nightmare detective to enter her dreams and save her. I see a sequel to this movie is in post production, and I hope it's better than the original. Seems kind of funny to me that Tsukamoto is making a sequel to this one, but who knows? From any other director on this subject matter, the movie would probably be a flop, but being Tsukamoto, he adds enough suspense and some gory suicides to make it interesting.

It's amazing how easily some so-called "cineasts" can be fooled. Since Tsukamoto made his entry with his manga-goes-experimental-trash epic Tetsuo his admirers are always eager to describe his amateurish and boring outings as "challenging" and "visionary".

The only thing really astonishing about this so-called director is that in his work there is no bottom-line in sight. Who would have thought that he could come up with anything worse than the terrible pretentious "Haze"? And yet we have "Nightmare Detective" a black hole of a movie that negates any form of talent for everyone involved. Despite the actual idea that someone can enter the dreams of others, there is absolutely nothing original to be found here.

But yeah! i forgot - of course i just don't get it because this stuff is so "challengening" for the average viewer.

In my eyes the "average viewer" is more than used to wooden performances, bad lightning and shaky hand-cameras, you can watch it on cheap TV-Shows every day. Dreams in movies have a very long history and it's really embarrassing how the subject is treated here. There is no effort made whatsoever to visualize an actual dream-sequence. Instead we get a shaky camera and pools of blood. The actors sometimes give the impression of being actually forced to participate in this mess. I guess they felt a little "challenged" too much by Tsukamotos total lack of ideas.

And hey - if you really don't want to believe that this is trash, just wait for the cheap Eric Satie-Rip-Off in the soundtrack. Just awful.

What's more unconvincing? Is it Ando Masanobu's acting: boyish, exuberant, and uncontrolled? Is it Tsukamoto Shinya's direction: loose, unfocused, and flimsy? Is it Tsukamoto's writing: imbalanced; overly reliant on tropes, and gawky inclusions of dramatic effect, that he himself seemingly does not believe in; and struggling to feel cogent and cohesive, and to weave a tale that believably holds itself together between two chief characters, an antagonist, and a split between a detective story and the adjoining dark fantasy and horror? Is it the imbalanced audio, and the music that seems too upfront in the mix and too forthright in and of itself? I sat to watch with high expectations, being intrigued by the premise and having enjoyed some of Tsukamoto's other work. And I'm frankly just disappointed, because I don't think this is nearly strong enough to support what good ideas Tsukamoto had.

Too much of the dialogue is just altogether bad; the narrative is direly thin, and sometimes decidedly messy. "Messy" is also a fair descriptor for a lot of the scene writing, though at least we can say that the nightmare sequences are (mostly) pretty sharp. Would that the same could be said for the characterizations, or for Tsukamoto's direction outside those nightmare sequences. In general it kind of comes across that the man was floundering and uncertain with this picture, unsure of how best to give form to his own weak material; specifically, the fragmented direction impacts the acting in turn, resulting in performances that approximate the ideal, necessary tenor and poise, but without any of the refined professional skill to really bring the saga to bear. Actually, maybe that's the key to the whole feature: close, but rough and unpolished. It tries to blend in horror, but the dispensation is modest and slight; it tries to be a detective story, but it's as if Tsukamoto is just limply imitating what he's seen before; it tries to incorporate a psychological component to the storytelling, but with blunt, hard edges, and without required finesse and nuance, all the attempted profundity of fractured reality, of the antagonist's mental state, and of the protagonists' "showdown" with the antagonist, just fall flat. All the thoughts are there, but they are not fully fleshed out, let alone rendered with the attentive mindfulness needed to make them resonate with us.

We've seen Tsukamoto at his best, and at his worst. 'Nightmare detective' is neither of these, and it falls somewhere in the middle. "Middle" becomes "middling" before very long, however. While this is well crafted in various regards - sound effects, stunts and effects, special makeup, some particular scenes that are marvelously creepy, broad workable notions - the sum total is both all over the place, and struggles to concretely achieve anything. Why, the harder the climax tries, the more skepticism it inspires. I appreciate what the filmmaker tried to do, but by whatever set of circumstances held sway here, the end product doesn't nearly pass muster. I was looking forward to this, and despite scattered odds and ends that come off quite well, the entirety simply does not in my opinion. It's still true that there are worse ways to spend one's time, but with so many other titles we could be watching instead that are much more worthy, why would we bother with this in the first place? I suppose I'm glad for those who get more out of 'Nightmare detective' than I did, but I'm not inclined to ever give this as a recommendation. Oh well.

You know a "horror" movie is just "ok", at best, when, an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie you start thinking, this movie would be a lot better with more character development. I know there are 2 sequels, so maybe the characters get a bit more "meat" on them in those sequels. But as for this one I found myself not caring about any of the characters. For me, in order for a horror movie to be good, you gotta care for at least one of the characters. Here, I just didn't. Even towards the end when they did decide to, barely, delve into the characters backstory, it was just too little to late. At first I was thinking maybe it was just bad subtitles. But after reading other reviews, it sounds like everything was translated just fine and the movie itself was, as I already said, just ok. If I'm not invested in your characters in the first part, you can guarantee I won't have any desire to see the sequels.

People are committing suicide in bloody, messy ways, and the police are at their wit's end as to why. The deaths are somehow connected to a mystery man on the victims' cell phones. Getting desperate, the cops decide to broaden their investigation, and enlist the services of the titular psychic.

NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE is yet one more example of inventive, bizarre horror from Japan. It starts out with some familiar cell phone insanity, quickly morphing into something completely different. Blurring the line between dreams and reality, ND pays homage to the classics while remaining original...