My journey through Takashi Shimizu's Village Trilogy continues with the second installment, based on the most well-known of Japan's creepy forests:
Suicide Forest Village
One day a mysterious box arrived and a curse began to spread all over. The source of the box is 'Jukai Village'. The village is hidden in Jukai Forest, a suicide spot that once you enter it, you can never come out.
To expand just slightly; a reclusive type girl, who constantly reads about paranormal ish online, goes with her sister to help some friends move into a house. While everyone's unpacking, the girl finds a hidden space under the patio, and the friends find a box. Everyone who comes into contact with the box ends up cursed.
It's a simple premise, that sets up a sort of cross between the Grudge and sometimes Blair Witch. But compared to the Grudge or Howling Village, this feels like a slow burn. There are scares from the opening scene, but they're much more reserved for the first 50 minutes of run time. I actually started to lose interest somewhat because the initial scares weren't hitting. But the slow-build did two things: It built up the mysteries surrounding the main characters and the box, and it allowed Shimizu to land some of the best sudden scares that I've seen in a long time.
Think about the well-setup jump scares from Smile, now remove all the indicators they gave you that a jump was coming. Sometimes shyt just pops off smack in the middle of a scene that was moving the plot forward. And it's not just once, Shimizu does it repeatedly. So everything in the last hour has this tinge of "I really don't know when or what messed up thing is gonna go down next." It was a unique and effective approach to scares that I really enjoyed. It caught me off guard more than once.
But it's a double-edged sword, because there are a lot fewer scares than in Howling Village. Howling Village constantly attacked you, whereas Suicide Village Forest takes its time. I preferred Howling Village, but both approaches have their charm.
Negatives: the Characters are pretty half-baked. There's a, barely there, love triangle and some flashbacks. But outside of the main two sisters, the characters don't give us much to connect with. The slow-burn makes it a fairly long runtime of just under 2 hours.
Conclusion: But those are my only major issues. I thought it ended stronger and there were some GREAT scares along the way. I preferred Howling Village for it's variety and constant bombarding of scares. But I rate Shimizu 2 for 2 so far in the trilogy.
