One of the most accomplished and acclaimed masters of modern J-Horror, director Takashi Shimizu has been on the cutting edge of the genre's popularity since he first emerged with his celebrated “Ju-On” entries that initially launched the movement in the early 2000s. Keeping his hand in the genre pretty consistent in the times since, among his most recent contributions is a loosely-connected trilogy of films known as the Village of Terror series that started with Howling Village, continued with Suicide Forest Village and now concludes with the most recent entry “Ox-Head Village” which celebrates its North American premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival.
Ox-Head Village is screening on New York Asian Film Festival
In a so-called “spirit video”, Kanon (Koki) is astonished to see a high-school girl who looks exactly like her. The girl's ox-head mask is torn away, she is closed into an abandoned hotel, and the footage ends. Who is she? Uneasiness gives way to dread. As if being led, she travels to the scene of the video, the Tsubono Mineral Springs. There she discovers secrets and customs that catch her up in a web of madness and fear.
Overall, “Ox-Head Village” ends the series rather strongly. This starts with an intriguing setup from writers Shimizu and Daisuke Hosaka that provides everything with a rather chilling environment to work with. The initial setup of the fateful village and the cursed means through which it spreads throughout the internet to reach Kanon by means of the viral video is a fairly strong one. That comes off rather nicely with the stranger in the video who looks exactly like her which offers up the kind of inquiry to look further into the legends surrounding it. With plenty of build-up focusing on the story involving the spirit that haunts the village cursing everyone who hears it to die shortly afterward, none of this is original but serves well enough in this kind of feature. This is done by offering the kind of baseline for the ghosts and spirits of the area to appear naturally in the film. The later reveal about the superstitions of the residents involving twins and how they play a part in the curse running through the town carries this kind of appealing setup rather well.
This provides “Ox-Head” with the opportunity to feature some chilling sequences and setpieces. The opening viral video of the schoolgirls exploring the abandoned building on a ghost hunt and encountering the vengeful spirit is an appropriately creepy intro. The scene provides some effective interplay between the on-screen chat with the viewers and a ghostly twist that comes off quite well. Later interactions along the way to the fabled village offer up similarly fine sequences, while the highlight sequence of Kanon and Ren exploring the hotel is an absolute standout. With some chilling images of the ghost lurking in the background watching over them, some ingenious interplay of the ghosts' haunting continually affecting the area and the lengthy nature all combine together into a fantastic part of the film. As the curse gets stronger and starts taking the lives of her friends and those around Kanon, this sets up the solid finale featuring the confrontations in the underground caves and the emotional resonance found in the story finally being resolved to bring peace to the area.
While these offer up positive points, “Ox-Head Village” has some drawbacks. The biggest letdown is Shimizu's underwhelming pace that lets it build up far too long of a running time. The exploits at the beginning diving deep into Kanon's troubled home life and school issues trying to keep Ren from charming her as she's obviously only interested in him for practical rather than romantic means, just drag this one out. Likewise, although immensely creepy in their own right, many of the scare scenes and shocks are shot in ways that take quite a while to play out which is somewhat distressing. The cadence and tempo of the scenes come up short on several occasions, especially in the abandoned hotel that seems to take forever which is also the case of the backstory flashback that fills in the gaps of the plot. While answering the questions of who everyone is, their relationships, and the tragedy that brings them together, is all so slow and drawn out that it adds unnecessary length mainly by the speed of the scene rather than the actions. It's all that bring this one down in the end.
With some enjoyable factors and not too many detriments, “Ox-Head Village” features a lot of fun elements although those drawbacks do come into play in the long run. Viewers who are curious about finishing off the trilogy, enjoy the approach taken here, or are fans of the creative crew will have plenty to appreciate here.
