Inunaki, le village oublié

As someone who views paranormal events, religions, and conspiracy theories as mere quackery, I am an avid follower of paranormal channels on YouTube-because they are simply hilarious.

In Japan, there isn't a single paranormal-themed channel that hasn't talked about the location featured in this film. It's incredibly popular-even curious Westerners spend a fortune traveling to this place just to shoot videos titled "I Saw a Ghost" or "I Spent a Night Here"...

Now, as for the movie-despite their ability to craft scripts that constantly breathe new life into the horror genre, the Japanese still haven't managed to improve their technical execution. The cinematography is so bad that it completely pulls you out of the film.

Other than that, it's a below-average effort-nothing more than a casual diversion for genre enthusiasts with time to spare.

Easy to understand. I'm not sure what all the other reviews were talking about in that regard. The story line was interesting, but overall it wasn't the most exciting movie. I didn't find it so much a horror as more a thriller. Overall i did enjoy the movie slightly, and I'm not mad I watched it, but if you're looking for something scary this really isn't the watch for you. The characters weren't stupid per say, but there was some moments where I wanted to yell at them.

I have watched several Japanese movies. Most are pacing, boring, ridiculous, and sometimes irrelevant, including this one. Not too much horror in it, half of the movie is about what really happened in Inunaki Mura. Most Japanese horror movies these days don't really want to scare you, they take you on a journey to see things that behind what is happening. For example, do you think you are going to see how the spirits in Inunaki Mura possess and murder people, with excessive violence and gore? No, it's gonna show you what happened to the village and why it no longer exists, and why the spirits are so vengeful. Japanese horror movies are very different to American and European horror movies, e.g. Japanese horror movies don't have much violence, gore and profanity. They also don't really have a great makeup department to make ghosts/spirits/creatures as scary as possible. They are more interested in "the whole story". People who love it will love it very much but those who don't, they will just "leave the cinema when it's still playing". Viewers who watched this also watched: Jukai Mura and Vshikubi Village.

This film essentially begins with a young woman named "Akina Nishida" (Rinka Otani) and her boyfriend "Yuma Morita" (Ryota Bando) going to an abandoned tunnel which is said to be the gateway to a haunted village on the other side. However, in order to get to this village a person has to receive a call from a specific phone booth near the tunnel at exactly 2 o'clock in the morning. Sure enough, when the phone rings, Akina nervously answers--and then proceeds into the tunnel with Yuma following behind and recording everything. The problem is that neither of them are prepared for what awaits them once they venture to the other side. The scene then shifts to a child psychologist by the name of "Kanata Morita" (Ayaka Miyoshi) getting acquainted with a new patient who apparently suffers from an overactive imagination and sees people who aren't there. Interestingly enough, Kanata also used to see apparitions and, while talking to the young boy, happens to catch a fleeting glimpse of the same person he does. Yet as startling as this may be for her, her fears become a reality when she returns home and learns that both Yuma and his girlfriend have encountered something supernatural--and complete insanity follows closely behind. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a difficult film to follow due in large part to the manner in which the overall story unfolded. Likewise, the language and cultural barriers didn't help either. So, what you have are several good horror scenes, followed by other scenes that don't initially make any sense. And even though there is some clarity at the end, the director (Takashi Shimizu) again muddies the water in the final scene. Unnecessarily, in my opinion. Be that as it may, while I don't consider this to be a bad horror film by any means, the fact is that it failed to meet its true potential, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

I don't know if it's just that I didn't pay enough attention to the storyline or it is lost in the subtitled translation or it's disjointed with no hope. Much of the movie was good, even intriguing. And it's made well, not an amateur production which many substandard horror films are. Yes, you'll get the main point about a travesty the leads to the legend of the Howling Village, but beyond that, It just didn't come together. It has a more than enough horror tropes to warrant a good film, maybe too many. Without spoiling it, there's your characters that can see the dead/ghosts and you have a corporate calamity/crime, and a few zombie like monsters, a cursed heritage, time travel, and an alternate reality or maybe you don't have these elements. And, if you do? How do they fit together? Aggh. Having just read some other reviews, I guess my confusion has less to do with my level of attention and more to do with the movie. G.