Yûta Shimotsu (director)
Shudder (studio)
18 (certificate)
82 (length)
06 November 2026 (released)
16 min
The film opens with three sequences of that are quite different in setting, a gang of paparazzi attack a celebrity couple, school children showing complete disrespect and violence towards the elderly and a politician on the shoulders of others with fistfuls of cash belittling those without. The common denominator is the pack mentality.
When Ai Sato (Anna Yamada) wakes up one day from what looks like a bad dream. What isn’t a bad dream is her school life which is starting to take on aspects of forced conformity. She experiences this in the girls’ toilets with a gang mentality on the rise. And more explicitly when new pupil Yu Kobayashi’s (Yuzu Aoki) sketched portrait is ripped up by the art teacher in front of the class for daring to deviate from the norm.
Meanwhile there are messages supposedly being picked up from outer space that are hotly debate on by TV presenters and pundits. The school then becomes the centre of attention when a blue light emanates from it.
Hard gym teachers become more violent and slowly a human pyramid begins to build on the school premises. Some such as Yu and Ai manage to avoid the call only to be targeted by those under the spell.
There is a not too subtle satire on social media and its capacity to manipulate (for good or bad) into like-minded groups, that have a low tolerance for non-like-minded. This could also be writer/ director Yûta Shimotsu putting the spotlight on Japan, which is sometimes considered an overly ordered society based on hierarchy and tradition.
That’s brainwashing on a superscale but in Ai’s own household there is manipulation of truth and past to avoid any confrontation or reminder of those events.
This all leads to some very weird human configurations that seek to get the non-conformists into the fold or crush them. So there are human tanks that chase Yu, Ai and a few others around the school. Oddly, these appear to be gymnastic patterns a sport recognised as one of the most meticulous and disciplined with points deducted for even a toe out of place.
New Group is an intriguing film if not that entertaining and could even be didactic. Also if you don’t know the numbers one and two in Japanese, you will by the end of the film as they are repeated incessantly by the brainwashed regimented pupils.
New Group will be on Shudder from 6 October 2026.
