Howling Village

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.

I was expecting a lot of this movie. But had to be disappointed since the opening scene of the story. I'm a little confused,that this is a movie about ghosts or zombies? For the character 'Akina'(opening scene) I think she is good at acting. She Making feel haunted and terrified with her ,even when the scene is in the daytime.

The element of the film that I am impressed with are color-design Creating an atmosphere and haunting background music (song like the nursery-rhyme).

But for the story part . Although it didn't confuse me. But it make me frustrate. Seems to be trying to bring the issues together too forcefully .I don't understand- 'Why did the movie have to include this part?' I think in some parts it doesn't look scary. But out of the story.

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.

This is a weak film. Starts really well but then just becomes uninteresting with too much non-convincing drama, too much talk, very predictable scares/deaths and lack of connection between scenes.

What's worst here is that I can feel that this story could have been a great film, as everything about the village is really creepy.

If you compare it to what Hollywood is churning out. Some form of family/friends entering a new home and facing horror, then this one is a refreshing change to that pattern.

Here the story is somewhere in Japan. Some teenagers visit a forgotten and hard to find place named Howling Village. There's the anticipation there exist ghosts. To their surprise the teenagers found out, that this is exactly the case. Pretty scary ones as well, so they ran in panic away, but the girl which was courageous amd funny until then, couldn't shake away the experience she just had. Not long later she commits suicide and her boyfriend wants revenge a d turns back to the place. He goes missing and that sets in a chain of events that are not very friendly to the town...

Some creepy parts and the story is interesting throughout the movie. The ghost town is a nice idea and there's a twist in the end that might not be your thing.