It’s coming. Are you ready? The new M. Night Shyamalan film opens today! Remember him? He made that amazing “I see dead people” movie. That ending was insane! I so didn’t see that coming? Awesome. How psyched are you for “The Village”? This guy’s a genius, right? Prepare your mind for boggling!

Sorry about that, I’m feeling a little woozy. The rug-pulling twist of “The Village” made my brain gurgle.

What I really meant to say is that the trick finale is a fairly routine visit to “The Twilight Zone,” I saw the end of “The Sixth Sense” coming a mile away, and “The Village” is a stultifying mediocrity so sure of its prowess it all but quashed my critical reason for a second there.

Getting back on track: Were it worth the effort, “The Village” might be parsed as a tale about psychotic conservativism. The residents of a vaguely 19th-century, intensely celebrity-packed village have vowed never to venture into the adjacent woodland or sinful cities beyond. They’re content as they are, thank you, with their communal brunching, happy-housework montages, and saucy offscreen inbreeding. To be fair, such extreme provincialism is rooted in homeland security concerns: Monsters inhabit the woods!

Before the current generation of villagers was born, their elders, led by mellow Edward Walker (William Hurt), negotiated a color-coded truce with the spooky woodland beasties (“those we don’t speak of”). Red is the “bad color,” mustard-yellow the “safe color,” but the exact rules of this chromatic engagement aren’t entirely clear. When the evil uglies are disgruntled, they sneak into the village and splash bright red warning signs on the doors. In response, the villagers wrap themselves in yellow muumuus, gather beneath a perimeter of yellow flags, and lob slabs of beef into the woods – “The Ceremony of Meat.” Yum!

For unclear reasons, the beasties have grown restless. Meanwhile, moody Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) is falling in love with the ethereal, slightly psychic blind girl, Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard). Momma Hunt (an exasperated Sigourney Weaver) appears to be suppressing some imminent hysteria. The utterly inexplicable August Nicholson wanders around for no discernable reason (other than to add Brendan Gleeson to the cast), while Finton Coin (Michael Pitt) diddles his thumbs in the watchtower.The village idiot (Adrian Brody impersonating Jeremy Davies) is the only one get ting a kick from the whole silly scene.

Worked into a jealous tizzy over Ivy, the idiot stabs Lucius several times – no doubt to Mr. Phoenix’s great relief. No such luck for the rest, who continue to ponder the imminent alien invasion and the antiquated goofiness of Mr. Shyamalan’s screenplay (“do not jostle about so!”). Heartbroken – or perhaps bored out of her mind – Ivy begs to venture into town for medical supplies. Poppa Walker consents.Yes, my fragile, nubile, handicapped daughter, flee into the monster-infested forest before it’s too late!

But first he takes her to the Shed We Must Never Visit and explains to her Those Things Which the Film Critics Are Not To Discuss.

I’ll respect Mr. Shyamalan’s artistry and not disclose any more – despite the fact that his artistry doesn’t respect its audience. Not one of the film’s images, performances, or ideas rings true. “The Village” is one long bamboozlement, an inept little con-job played on the audience, not for it. This surface deceptiveness is integral to the very premise of the story. But a deeper, more callow fakery rots the film from the inside out.

If sincerity is technique, Mr. Shyamalan’s sad technique says it all. He leaves his A-list cast to sputter risible dialogue. His threadbare camera work is cloaked in luxurious cinematography by Roger Deakins, who makes cheap images shine. He leans on the sound team and composer for every fright; his go at creepy mise-en-scene is laughable; and he is either incapable of or uninterested in genre satisfactions.

What rankles is not so much failure as an upscale horror film or gotcha!- thriller, but the oppressive atmosphere of self-aggrandizement (keep an eye out for an obnoxiously “subtle” cameo by the would-be auteur himself). This toxic narcissism is connected to a wholesale exploitation of the national mood. What else is the village but a slapdash, color-coded analogue for Red vs. Blue America? Mr. Shyamalan designs his high-concept magic shows for close inspection. Look closely: It’s all done with smoke and mirror.

***

Of the half-dozen filmed lunacies made by Takashi Miike in any given year, one or two inevitably convulse their way into a cinema south of 14th street. Most recently, Anthology Film Archive savored the abattoir flavors and man-tempura aromas of “Ichii the Killer,” an especially moist variation on Mr. Miike’s specialty, the “yakuza whatever.” Now here comes “Gozu,” charging like a slobbery Minotaur in tightie-whities straight for Cinema Village.

To clarify: That’s not just a bit of metaphorical nuttiness for those who miss Elvis. It’s an actual description of a hilarious monster who makes a late appearance in Mr. Miike’s latest plunge into psychosexual yakuza weirdness. Along with an enigmatic, Janus-faced albino who may or may not be teleporting his way though the narrative, this ever-so-special effect is meant to mess with the head of yakuza heavy Minami (Hideki Stone).

“Gozu” is plotted – I use the term loosely – as a surrealist odyssey in which Minami must find and kill Ozaki (Sho Aikawa), an “older brother” in his crime family who’s lost his marbles. In the pre-credit sequence, Ozaki mistakes a toy poodle for a “yakuza attack dog,” lifts it up by the tail, whirls it several times around his head, then lets fly with a bloody splat against the window of a sake bar. Mr. Miike wastes no time preparing his sploochy palate.

You might want to skip eating, though, before heading into the mad final sprint of “Gozu.” Having transmigrated to the body of a femme fatale, Ozaki undergoes a spectacularly gooey, ridiculously icky (re)birth. We’re also treated to the spectacle of a mob boss electrocuted to death via the metal spoon protruding from – well, see for yourself.

Seeing, not thinking, is the pleasure of “Gozu.” Mr. Miike’s gonzo surrealism is overly indebted to Cronenberg and Lynch. His possible intellectual aims – subverting yakuza gender codes, staging social and aesthetic improprieties – are familiar enough. But the funky eye is his alone. He front-loads his compositions with bric-a-brac (candles, figures) that gum to the screen; you’re always looking past the image to get into the image.

Unlike Mr. Miike’s best work (“Vistor Q,” “Ichii”), however, the visual inventiveness of “Gozu” detaches itself from the calculated content; the essential banality of the later undermines a freaky fusion. It’s as if Paul McCarthy learned to paint like Gerhard Richter, but refused to give up mayonnaise-humping as a subject.