'Chô' kowai hanashi A: yami no karasu

Low budget horror from Japan with great start, good finish and lots of out of town location shooting. Centred upon a convenience store, this manages to set up a decently creepy feel and produce some scary moments without too much happening. Bit derivative in parts but at the same time pretty original in others.

I don't think the OTT zombie like crazy owners added much but the film just about hangs together basically because there is this mood set up and it is never clear what is going to happen next. Good performances from little known youngsters further contribute to making this worth a view.

An entertaining Japanese horror film with some creative ideas which don't so much add to the narrative as simply create an eerie surreal atmosphere around the convenience shop as well as an element of humour at times. The film is also beautifully centralised around a small shop setting.

I would recommend someone watch this film and not be phased by the story structure being very reminiscent of any other Asian horror films or the cheap appearance of the visuals. This film also makes good use of its budget and while looking cheap is far from trashy. It lacks the seamlessness of Hollywood in its editing and camera use but this really doesn't limit the enjoyability of the film, it if anything adds to it.

Nao (Hiroko Satô) works as a cashier in a convenience store that occupies a plot of land previously owned by a mass murderer and which is built on foundations made from crushed gravestones. As a result, the place is a centre for negative energy, its aisles are haunted by menacing soul-less creatures (a bit like my local ASDA), and anyone unwise enough to shop there winds up dead soon after. Will Nao also fall foul of the curse on her creepy workplace?

Low-budget Asian ghost flick Cursed is a mish-mash of frustratingly familiar themes inspired by a whole slew of other (but not necessarily better, IMHO) J-Horror 'classics'; but although it doesn't demonstrate much in the way of originality in terms of actual content, Yoshihiro Hoshino's unconventional directorial style and random approach to plot development does ensure that his film offers just enough novelty and individuality to prevent it from feeling too stale.

Hoshino opens with a rather predictable but still very effective jolt, quickly develops a suitably creepy atmosphere that is sustained throughout, and delivers at least one genuinely tense scene (featuring a sledgehammer wielding killer) amidst the more routine J-horror elements: eyes staring out from unexpected places, a spooky girl crawling from an electrical household appliance, a silent faceless figure in a Parka coat... y'know, all that malarkey.

An entertaining Japanese horror flick with some genuinely creepy scenes and imagery. The scenes with the ball are especially well done. Worth watching, if you can find a copy.

Not sure the film can be easily summarized, but suffice it to say a young Japanese girl takes a job in the Japanese version of a convenience store, like a 7-11. This is far from your usual quick mart, though, as the couple who own it are really creepy and then there's the repeat customer who always wears a parka and never shows their face. From there the movie is more akin to the Japanese film Tampopo (but this is definitely horror and not comedy) in showing seemingly unrelated stories of other people who start to encounter peculiar and horrific events. Around the middle three of these stories are shown in a masterful split-screen shot. It pays homage to many of the classic J-horror films that preceded it, with a bit of sly humor behind a lot of it. It's unique, like Uzumaki, and also cheaply shot on video, so a bit rough around the edges. But for something completely different, you could certainly do worse. The first time I saw it I didn't think it was very scary, but on second viewing with some family they were absolutely terrified. Highly recommended.