Granted, I haven't seen the first movie, so I had no idea what this was about or what I was getting into when I sat down to watch the 2016 Japanese horror movie "Corpse Party: Book of Shadows" (aka "Kôpusu pâti: Book of Shadows"). All I knew was that it was a Japanese horror movie, and that was essentially also all I needed to know.
Japanese cinema usually makes fairly good horror movies. But of course not everything produced there can be gold. And "Corpse Party: Book of Shadows" was definitely not gold. In fact, it was far from it.
I found the storyline in the movie to be utter rubbish and downright boring. I managed to endure the movie to the bitter end, but I can't claim to have been entertained, not even remotely. I stuck with the movie, only for the gore and because it was a Japanese horror after all - and maybe the movie would pick up and become better along the way.
It just never did.
The characters in the movie were rather pointless and very much like cardboard cut-out figures without personality or much drive. Which made the movie suffer horribly.
This was a massive swing and a miss for me. And I am rating this movie a mere two out of ten stars. This is basically because the movie was, after all, nicely produced.
