Warning: This review contains screenshots that could be considered spoilers. In other words, I'm gonna show you the big bad.

"Am I pretty?"

Carved: The Slit Mouthed Woman is a J-horror about the Kuchisake-onna (slit-mouthed woman) urban legend. In the legend, a beautiful woman is disfigured, her mouth slit ear to ear. She approaches children/college students wearing a surgical mask and asks "Do you think I'm beautiful?". If they answer yes, she will rip off the mask and show them her face asking "even like this?". When they say "no", she kills them.

In Carved, the Kuchisake-onna possesses single mothers and kidnaps kids, taking them to her dwelling where she does mean things to them with some gnarly looking scissors. Haruhiko Kato plays Noboru Matsuzaki, a teacher who believes his long deceased, abusive mother may be the slit mouthed woman that has been kidnapping children. Kyoko Yamashita (Eriko Sato) witnesses an abduction and joins him in trying to find the missing children.

I will say this is a different kind of J-horror. There are no "long-haired ghost girls" to be found. Just one pretty creepy looking woman with a long pair of scissors. Carved's also has a lot of scenes with child abuse. Lots of hitting/slapping/punching/kicking and bruises. The acting is hit or miss here and there. My main gripe is Eriko Sato, unfortunately. I don't know if it's the bad dialogue or if she's overacting. I know a lot of the scenes where she is terrified I found myself laughing in. She screams a lot and makes very frightened faces. Maybe I just like her best as Cutie Honey. The score is minimal and I like that. Never over the top. There isn't a whole lot of gore/blood in this movie so if you're a gore hound, this might not be for you.

Overall I say if you're looking for a different kind of J-Horror, I'd recommend you go with Pulse, Audition, or Suicide Club. If you've seen these and you still want to see more, go for Infection, or Uzumaki. I guess if you've seen all that, you could try Carved. Yes, I do not like/recommend this movie. Something is just missing. It could be the pacing, dialogue, or general lack of creepiness. Although the slit mouthed woman looked creepy, I just wasn't feeling it. No heebie jeebies here at all. Not even a shiver. I think this probably would have worked better if it was a short story. Maybe as part of a vignette of Japanese folklore. If you're put off by this review but sill want to see the movie just for the slit mouthed woman, I took screen shots. These are all the shots of the slit mouthed woman. Mwahahahaha.

Things I learned from Carved: The Slit Mouthed Woman:
1) Aim for the neck!
2) A face mask, trench coat, scary contacts, and long ass scissors make for a creepy Halloween costume.

Memorable scenes:
1) Rie Kuwana (Strange Circus), wearing a surgical mask to school to cover her bruises, is teased by some classmates
2) Any scenes involving the slit mouthed woman. Maybe it was the scissors...
3) The slit mouthed woman cutting one of Rie Kuwana's friend. This is done slightly off camera. I got an idea of what's being done without seeing it and it made me cringe.
4) Noboru Matsuzaki's mother is abusing him and his siblings. She basically puts them in a line up for a smack down. This scene made me chuckle and it *really* shouldn't have.

The info I found about the Kuchisake-onna was on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna

Carved is available to buy at the following vendors: