Reincaration

(2007, Japanese) ***

In 1970 a professor slaughtered his family, guests, and staff in the Ono Kanko Hotel in an attempt to prove his reincarnation theory (well he was crazy after all). Fast forward to the present. A hip, youngish director has written a script detailing the events surrounding those horrible murders. After hiring a cast and re-creating the hotel in its entirety, which made little sense since the original hotel still existed; hip director begins filming the tragic story. Young, unknown actress, Sugiura is cast in the lead role and almost immediately begins having terrible visions of that horrible night. Meanwhile others in the cast begin having strange experiences.

J-Horror lesson – If you ever go to Japan, don’t ride the elevators.

After tepid remakes of his excellent JU-ON films, Takashi Shimizu returns to form with more goose bump inducing, J-Horror. Although not as groundbreaking, scary or original as other films in the ghost genre that Shimizu himself was instrumental in creating, Reincarnation contains enough scares and jumps to satisfy. Yes it’s true, you can almost use a checklist when you watch J-Horror “ghost” movies these days; creepy, silent girl? Check. Creepy elevator scene? Check. People walking in a creepy, jerky way? Check. A protagonist who keeps having visions/memories that are not her own? Check, but damn these “scares” are still effective! Just look at that that first picture. Imagine riding on the subway and catching a glimpse of that for a moment. If that’s not the creepiest doll I’ve ever seen…