Time to visit Takashi Shimizu’s recent “Horror Village” trilogy, where each film takes place at a different famous haunted location in Japan.  It’s also a good reminder that Japanese have killer urban legends - Howling Village is based on the popular Inunaki Village one of the 90s, where there is a cursed village that doesn’t exist on any maps (like the haunted late night trains in the urban legend that inspired Kisaragi Station).  In the variant that Howling Village (sometimes) follows, there is a haunted phone booth near the village that sometimes rings, and only if you answer it do you gain admittance to the village - and your doom.

Howling Village opens with a fun found footage section that is…

Teen couple journey through a haunted tunnel at 2am in search of a mysterious lost village

I was excited about this one, as it stars the lead actress of my favourite film from last year, Ayaka Miyoshi, and is directed by Ju-On's Takashi Shimizu. And... my excitement dwindled as the film progressed into mediocrity.
Based on the Japanese urban legend of Inunaki, an actual outlawed village that mysteriously vanished, where howling and screaming can be heard in the surrounding woods nearby. So the CreepyPasta folklore was set and all Takashi had to do was make something amazing out of it.
Kanae's (Miyoshi) character is a nurse who has a sixth sense, so she can see spirits everywhere, even though she…

There was a time when Shimizu was one of my favourite horror directors. He could do no wrong. His Ju-on films (particularly the first SOV one), Marebito an Reincarnation were some of the most exciting horror films i'd seen coming out of any country. And then, like some curse had been put on him, he made a string of unwatchable cheesefests.

When I saw the trailer for this, I didn't want to get my hopes too high, but boy was I ever rooting for it to be good. And then I read the bad reviews. Rats!

So, I went into this, kinda knowing I wasn't going to like it. I sadly pressed play... and what do you know, I was…

🎃 Spooky Season - #13

Sem grandes jogos de câmeras e com uma fotografia razoável, 犬鳴村 entrega bons elementos sobrenaturais, é uma pegada bem única e original, eu pelo menos não vi nada parecido. Os visuais dos espíritos ficaram muito legais, curti. 

MEUS AMIGOS, O QUE FOI AQUELA CENA DA QUEDA DA AKINA????? Eu estou chocado até agora, melhor direção do filme!

Contudo, de uma forma geral, o longa falha em criar uma atmosfera de fato sobrenatural e que da medo, uma paleta de cores melhor e alguns movimentos de câmera já dariam conta do recado… fora que a estruturação do roteiro para com a direção não ficou legal, a montagem e a edição dessa obra deixaram a desejar, faltou…

Hooptober 11, #37
Films from 6 countries: Japan

So unfortunately, couldn’t find my original pick (Tomie) anywhere, so had to switch up my Japan film. 

Howling Village is a folkish revengish horror? I don’t really know. You’ve got a haunted tunnel, some ghosts, some dogs, a weird kid, and a lady with a mysterious past, but nothing really comes together. 

This somehow manages to do too much and too little at the same time. The plot is convoluted and requires more thinking than I was inclined to do at midnight last night - not because it was as complex, but because it was uneccesarily hard to follow. Part of the issue is that the layout of the story doesn’t invite…