Premonition

(2004)***

More J-horror! I couldn’t resist this because the box alone looked creepy. Premonition almost succeeds as a decent, creepy horror film, but in typical Japanese horror fashion, the attempt to add a burst of twists during the last 10 minutes of the film makes it almost impossible to figure out what the hell is going on.
During a road trip with his wife and daughter, Hideki stops at a phone booth to transmit information on his laptop to the university where he works. Apparently the phone booths in Japan have internet jacks in them! While transmitting his work, he spies a fragment of newspaper on the ground. Although the paper predicts a horrible death of someone he cares about, he does nothing. The prediction comes true. Three years later Hideki has not been able to put this experience behind him. He’s living a pathetic sort of existence and he’s not respected by anyone. Soon little fragments of newspapers begin to show up, all predicting terrible events. As he investigates the “horror newspaper” mythos, he finds himself responsible for people’s lives. Despite a desire to warn people of upcoming disasters, he learns that helping may come at the expense of his own life.
Premonition is pretty good but it’s a bit slow even for J-horror. Still, it’s an intriguing idea and there’s a few good scares thrown in to boot.