Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Overrated

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A man with a hair fetish has been harvesting the locks of the recently deceased for his collection of award winning hair extensions. But things start to get weird when he takes the hair from the body of a woman that seems to be haunted...it just continues to grow...and grow...and grow...So he begins lop off segments and give them to local hair salons as samples. He's not in it for the money...he just wants to see a world full of people with beautiful hair.However, something isn't right with this hair.Those who dawn it, become consumed by it...quite literally...as hair begins growing from every pore...orifice...internal organ...etc...until they're dead.And only someone who can truly understand the suffering that the hair woman went through- prior to her death- can break the curse.This film is some kind of weird. The special effects (a combination of traditional and cgi) have their moments. It is both humorous and disturbing. And the ending is patently ridiculous...but at least it's patently ridiculous fun. 6 out of 10.

Having watched Asian horror movies for some years now, the weird fetish with long hair is no surprise. But this movie, it was just a tad too much.The story is pretty stupid. A dead woman's hair keeps growing, and a lunatic guy keeps the body around and cuts the hair to use for hair extensions. He gives these extensions away to hair salons, and the hair kills people! What the... Hold it, back it up right here. Could it be any more stupid than this? Having seen lots and lots of Asian horror movies over the years, "Exte" takes the lead in having the most stupid and ridiculous storyline ever.As for the acting in the movie, well it was alright, although the movie suffered from a really bad dialogue. Looking aside from this, then the little girl, Miku Satô (playing Mami) was actually the one doing the best job in the movie. Most others were either over-doing it or suffered from horrendous dialogue to work with.There wasn't a single moment in the movie where I was scared or spooked, and truth be told, I almost dozed off at a point. The story takes forever to get you nowhere. And when the movie ends, you sit there with a very shallow feeling.If you like Asian horror movies, then there are far better ones out there. I decided to give "Exte" a try because it was labeled as Asian horror, but I was sorely disappointed. And I believe that even Asian people will not find this movie scary, because the usage of the hair and the sheer amount of it was just way too much. I managed to sit through the entire movie, and can honestly say that this DVD will be bagged and tagged, never to be seen again.

Hair Extensions works much better than expected. I mean, seriously, how much horror can one expect to come out of something as simple as hair? But the hair in this film is possessed, you see. It comes out through parts of the body once it attach's itself inside the host body: the person gets hair through fingernails, shooting up like weeds in a garden, through eyeballs, through a mouth, everywhere. And in this film, one of Sion Sono's better works for mainstream consumption, it's real success comes that it's not simply about a maniac guy who uses demon hair to kill people (he also sells hair extensions that have the roots that have Grudge-type problems, yes hair can remember). No, it's also a domestic drama involving a woman who works at a salon (the adorable Chiaki Kuriyama) whose sister is an abusive B-word to her daughter, who is traumatized for life at the age of four.For a little while (maybe the first 45 minutes) it's a wonder how these two stories, one with these people being killed by hair and this wacky guy in his home made out of hair-locks (and of course it's all lit in darks and greens), and the other with the salon girls and the drama with the sister and the daughter, will intersect. Once it does, the movie gears into being totally absorbing, and Sono is very creative with how he stages his horror set pieces. There aren't *that* many kills, at least not as many as one might expect from the director of Suicide Club. It's more about staging a setting and place, how it's lit, how the person in the shot moves about. It's not about jump scares, and it's not about some of the simpler modes that sometimes happen in "grudge" movies. In this film, a seemingly dead body can still f*** with the living. The acting is also quite good, which is important as a lot of the film's drama rests on the sister and daughter and how Chiaki's character has to try hard just to reach out to the little girl (even more difficult after a particularly traumatic scene she sees, which we wisely only see some of before the big reveal). It's gory, which is to be expected, but I was amazed by the suspense that Sono was able to draw out of scenes, even in the climax which veers into over-the-top territory with its antagonist. Oh, and the movie is surprisingly funny to boot, mostly involving a cat who suddenly appears in scenes posed next to a statue outside at night (or just, you know, around), or how the villain sidles his way into the salon with his precious hair extensions. Only one moment that should be painfully obvious to anyone but isn't seen by the protagonist makes on do a face palm. The rest of the film is fun, effective and leaves an impression as art merged with genre.

*mild spoilers I just saw this movie at Fantasia tonight and since there is no review yet, here's a first.This movie will definitely please Sion Siono's fans. It's more lighthearted and not as disturbing as Strange Circus. The plot is in the B horror movie tradition and centers around a dead girl's cursed hair. But there's also the parallel storyline of hairdresser Yuko and the cute Mami-chan.This movie doesn't take itself literally and that's an understatement. Siono knows his audience very well and incorporates many gags that will certainly please j-horror fans. Ren Osugi's acting is theatrical and completely outrageous. He delivers a crazy and fascinating performance. It also doesn't hurt that the production values are very high. A must see for fans of the burlesque and horrible.