As a child, Wakaba (Sayu Kubota) had to deal with a bully of a father and even more negative treatment in school. Perhaps that why she always protected Koki, a boy who was treated the worst of everyone by the bullies. That stopped, however, when two of the boys were found dead and Koki killed himself some years later.

Years later, Wakaba is all grown up and on the way to a vacation to the woods with some girls and a musician that she has always been a fan of, Kohei Shirasaki. Yet like a trip to a slasher camp, everyone that interacts with her is murdered by a killing machine with a mechanical mask. In fact, only she and one other person survive the attacks. As Kamiyama, a police officer who was also the father of a girl who was killed, investigates, people close to Wakaba continue to get murdered in horrific ways. Has Koki never gone away?

Until now, I had only seen short films from Kenichi Ugana like Vierailijat and Extraneous Matter Complete Edition. This is even stranger than those films, if that’s even possible, because it’s somehow a sweet romance, a hilarious bit of comedy and a slasher, sometimes all at the very same time. It also feels odder and way more transgressive than the feeble stabs at strange that people rave over in Western elevated horror. This is no navel gazing but instead somewhat inspired levels of sustained weirdness.

Love Will Tear Us Apart was watched as part of The GenreBlast Film Festival which is from August 31 to September 3. All screenings for GenreBlast are held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester, Virginia. Passes are on sale through The Alamo Drafthouse Winchester. Learn more at the official site.