Onpaku

Arriving in Japan on business, a woman trying to acclimate herself to the city while accomplishing an important project grows increasingly concerned about the illegal house she's staying at, and with a police investigation fueling her suspicions, tries to uncover the truth about its history to save herself.

This was a fairly solid and generally impressive offering. One of the better efforts with this one is a generally ominous and immersive atmosphere that takes place here, involving the different setups at work in the film. The simple starting point of the woman arriving in the city and trying to find her way while dealing with the traditional racist views towards outsiders, leading to a struggle in finding a place to stay, makes for a solid enough premise here. Focusing on this aspect as a means of forcing her into the main house, especially with the extenuating circumstances involving the political situation at the time that further hampers the opportunity to find suitable lodging and making the house all the more appealing, it sets up a sympathetic central figure around which everything happening to has some emotional weight to it while furthering the type of ongoing setup that plays nicely here. This setup allows for a great baseline upon which to start introducing the more overt genre elements. The sudden appearance of the strange woman and the relationship that arises from her constantly appearing around her to then look into the demented history is all quite fun, generating some solid J-Horror scares with figures suddenly appearing out of nowhere or emerging from the shadows unexpectedly. This carries on throughout here well enough that it starts to generate some effective and admittedly chilling imagery that inadvertently provides a key into the sordid history of the location that serves as the focal point for the hauntings she keeps experiencing, which allows for some great fun to be had the more it goes along. The concurrent police investigation into everything brings about some great fun as well as setting up the revelations about the conspiracy, keeping the contents of the house a secret, which becomes a solid secondary storyline leading into the fantastic finale. With a series of impressive revelations, chilling visuals, and some unexpected outcomes, this comes off quite nicely, making for a great time overall. There are some big flaws present here that hold this one down. The biggest factor against it is an immensely confusing storyline that might have some great ideas present, but is trying way too hard to fit everything into its running time. The fast-paced tempo here is almost a disservice, running through some admittedly intriguing storylines featuring the gradual sickness she suffers from, the different interactions with the police detective alongside his sister investigating everything, and how she ties into the house's scandalous past, which makes everything feel far more intriguing than it really does upon closer inspection. This one tends to introduce these elements as a way of providing a depth to the story that it doesn't need and could've been streamlined slightly to save this, and with a decidedly obvious low-budget bent to everything, which can be problematic, there are a few drawbacks to this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.