Kotsutsubo

Going through a list of Japanese horror films that I am watching I have come across several of which I've already seen but didn't realize. This is one of those films. First off we have a cast of cute high school girls especially Ai Shinozaki who played Kaho. She is a Japanese gravure idol who is extremely cute and has other good qualities if you know what I mean. So aside from the cast of cute girls we have a decent horror movie about a curse that kills people. The main character Eri (Natsumi Matsubara) starts this curse by putting cursed ashes in a teachers drink. What happens when people have these ashes is of course they are killed but the right arm is severed and missing. There are some creepy moments in this movie and it's a pretty decent film.

After the popular girl Mitsuko is harassed, her morbid friend Eri goes to the graveyard and steals ash from an urn. It is believed that anyone who eats from the ash will be haunted, and the girls plan to use this for revenge. What could possibly go wrong?

It is a short, low-budget movie. The lighting is faint, there's snow in the forest, and the atmosphere is depressing, but there are not many scares, which is not a bad thing.

An interesting anecdote is that most characters are played by members of various idol groups, rather than picking everyone from the same group.

But the movie is carried by Eri (Matsubara Natsumi from AKB48), who is weak, socially inept, and the underdog in every situation. Often she was afraid or even paralyzed by fear, but she never screamed. Whenever a bad situation developed, she showed impressing bravery and resourcefulness. One of the best protagonists I have seen in a horror movie.

Notable is also the relation between Eri and Mitsuko, which is quite one-sided.

On the other hand there is not much attention to the activities of the "ghost", concealing that it is actually quite badass.

An important part of most horror movies is a hidden backstory that is revealed gradually. Of course this movie also has one, and I can empathize with it.

Another plus is that most of the action results from the initiatives taken by Eri and others, rather than them being mindlessly hunted down.

In my opinion one of the best Japanese horror movies.