What seemed to be a dream home for the Kamiki family quickly turns into a nightmare, as it turns out that the house they just acquired is haunted by the very violent spirit of Sayuri, a girl who used to live in the house about 10 years earlier. For some reason, Sayuri is filled with rage and sees this happy, loving family as something that she needs to destroy.
Right after they finish moving in, the Kamikis start to suffer accidents all through the house, while most of the members of the family accept them as just random unlucky moments, the senile grandmother who suffers from Dementia, seems to get glimpses of Sayuri. Norio, the middle son of the family and the one closest to Grandma, thinks all her ravings are due to her condition.
It’s only when things go horribly wrong that Norio starts to believe the words of Sumida, a girl from school who warned him about an evil presence in his house. This is also the time where Grandma seems to become lucid again, with a clear mind and the mission to defend her family sending Sayuri back to hell.
But as you might guess, there is more to this, and the task won’t be that easy.
This is the premise of “House of Sayuri” a film directed by Koji Shiraishi («Noroi: The Curse» , «Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman») and was recently presented in Fantasia 2024.
I really enjoyed this film, but I can see that it won’t be for everyone. The first half of the film is a very good horror film, not only for Asian Horror standards, but also for worldwide cinema. I would dare to say that it even breaks the formula that feels overused in the haunted house genre, and creates its own path.
One of the things that surprised me the most, is that so many things had happened in the first 40 minutes mark, that I found asking myself aloud “Damn! What are you going to do with the remaining hour?”.
While the end product was very satisfying, the second half is a mixed bag, with some comedy that was very close to derailing the film for me. Luckily, a little before the last 30 minutes, the tone shifts back to a more serious one.
There are some twists that were very well hidden up to that point, and the story also goes into very dark territory that I was not expecting. While this film has no gore, it is very violent at some points.
The special effects in the last part of the film are more CGI than practical, and although they were not a problem for me, they stand out. The first part of the film relied more on practical special effects that I thought were more effective.
There were also several moments where the sound effects were crucial to delivering some scares. The movie made me jump in my seat a couple of times and at no moment were there any fake jump scares unlike in a lot of western modern films.
That is one of the reasons why this film earned my respect. The other is because NOBODY is safe in this movie, it doesn’t matter your age or gender, anyone in this family is a target for Sayuri’s rage and can become a corpse before the film ends.
The acting is for the most part very good, I found the family very likable, and when they start to suffer due Sayuri’s action we really feel sorry for them. On the other hand, I felt that some of the acting was a little bit off with the Grandma character, this is when she has her episodes of dementia. When she is “Awake” I felt it was a little bit over the top in her new badass persona, but she never becomes annoying or too much. She is actually a very good character, it just felt a little unbalanced at first, but works very well in the end.
Overall I enjoyed “House Of Sayuri” a lot (FYI, it seems the original title is just “Sayuri”). I’ll recommend you to look for it once it gets released.
And I will be reviewing more films doing our remote coverage, so stay tuned!
