Hana-Dama: Phantom

In this, a sequel to Hisayasu Sato's HANA DAMA: THE ORIGIN (2014), the evil flower that resolved the plot of that film has returned in a far more obscure, less accessible entry. Set mostly in a decrepit "repertory"-type cinema that is on the verge of closing forever, during the screening of a movie the projectionist (Shima Ohnishi) finds in the film a woman who should not be there. He inspects the film reels but cannot find the girl anywhere. Later, he finds her haunting the theater and hides her in the projectionist room, but she later disappears. This leads him to learn of her tragic life in a baffling series of flash-forwards / flashbacks that imply much more than is explained. The flower appears later as an image on the movie screen, at which point HANA DAMA: PHANTOM goes off the rails with every character, including film-within-film characters, losing their minds, unbottling their emotional turmoil and playing out their often disgusting hidden pleasures. Similarly, Sato's movie unspools much like one of his transgressive 1980s "J-films," with camcorder-level photography and low production values, but not without a certain level of curious intensity.