Shimizu Takashi was one of the breakthrough J-horror directors in the first decade of the twenty-first century whose work was unique, ground-breaking, and arguably most importantly, genuinely scary.  Ju-on, Ju-on: The Grudge, Marebito, Rinne, Tomie: Rebirth, and his other films from this period standout.  Watching those films was like watching a master horror filmmaker at the height of his game.  So I was very excited to go into his 2019 film Howling Village, a horror film about a lost village and a family struck repeatedly by tragedy due to their relationship to the eponymous place.

*All names given Japanese-style, with surname first.

The writing is good, the acting is excellent, the characters make sense, as do their actions, and yet the film never quite rises to the level that the writer/director and the material seem to promise.  There is nothing in the film we have not seen before (and if we are honest, seen done better) in a dozen or more films from a decade ago.

Howling Village begins as a seeming found footage film, with Akina (Ôtani Rinka) investigating the urban legends surrounding the lost Inunaki Mura (“Howling Village,” although one might also translate it as “Screaming Dog Village”) with her boyfriend and cameraman Yuma (Bandô Ryôta).  They discover the village and Akina is attacked by spirits.  The film then switches to a straightforward narrative and remains so for the rest of the duration.

The encounter, however, sets in motion a series of events that results in one of the most spectacular, surprising and effective moments in the film and a flash of Shimizu’s mastery of uncanny shock.  The film also follows Kanade (Miyoshi Ayaka), Yuma’s older sister and a child psychiatrist who sees ghosts, too.  The family begins to fall apart as Yuma and youngest brother Kota vanish into “Howling Tunnel” which sometimes is a portal to the village and sometimes just an abandoned tunnel.

Kanade begins to investigate Howling Village, despite also having her own mystery – a young patient of hers who is followed by the ghost of his dead mother – and eventually discovers that her family is intimately and intricately connected to the history and mystery of the village.

The revelation, however, feels less like a major discovery and more like an anticlimactic explanation that explains all the mysteries and reveals why the events have unfolded the way they have.  It also felt both obvious and forced.  What could have been uncanny, unsettling and chilling is instead a bit of a hot mess involving time travel and village that may be full of zombies, ghosts or even werewolves.

The monstrous inhabitants of the village seem to be whatever the film wants them to be in the moment – spirits, corporeal, dog-people, etc.  In fact, the biggest disappointment in the film is the rendering of the ghosts: the special effects employed were already unimpressive and out-of-date when Ju-on was released. The movie does not live up to the promising beginning or that one stunning scene I alluded to earlier.  The spirits were neither scary nor convincing, and the film deserves better.

The acting is excellent, and the story is interesting enough, but the whole is sadly not greater than the sum of the parts.  Howling Village is enjoyable enough, but not destined to be remembered as one of Shimizu’s better efforts.  Watch it, but then put on Marebito to see the master at work.

6 out of 10