Tokyo Videos of Horror (2012)

Original title: 闇動画 Yami Douga

POV horror is apparently not just the great Koji Shiraishi’s obsession, but at least until the end of the 2010’s, there was a proper little cottage industry in Japan churning out cheap POV horror series for the DVD/streaming (or however you consume this stuff in Japan) market. Yami Douga – like the 25(!) other films in the series - was directed – possibly written, depending on the sources – by Kazuto (or Kazu, again depending on the source) Kodama.

Structurally, the films in the series consist of a number of found footage segments where the meat of the small supernatural horror tales is intercut with interview footage of generally one of the surviving characters, or simply a character who acquired the footage we’re seeing. Ghosts and ultra cheap CGI ghoulies appear in the background and are pointed out, rewound to and checked out in slow motion.

Contentwise, the tiny tales stand with both feet in the realm of Japanese creepypasta and J-horror traditions. There’s the tale about the couple shooting fireworks at the beach who are led to the corpse of a dead kid by its ghost; the tale of a man lured into cursing himself through a ritual on a grave out in the boons and who is then accosted what may be rokurokubi, and so on and so forth. The whole affair has its creepy moments, where the low res footage – often made even lower res by exhaustive use of pixeling out of faces, signs and so on –, the simplicity of the tales, how much they are of a specific time and place, and the general awesomeness of Japanese ghost (and yokai, and so on) lore combine rather wonderfully. At least wonderfully enough to charm someone like me who really likes this sort of thing. From time to time, there’s also a grand carnivalesque hokiness on display, when the film counts down from ten so one can run away screaming/close one’s eyes/fast forward away to the next segment before it shows something mind-blowing and haunting (or so it says). William Castle would be so proud, particularly when said mind-blowing thing is a cheap and cheery CGI effect of dubious provenance.

The final tale is quite different in tone, however, and seems to aim more for a bit of Guinea Pig nastiness, though Yami Douga doesn’t even have enough of a budget to pull the gore off properly. Here, a pregnant woman is mildly – for this particular genre – abused by yakuza, drugged, and then made to commit suicide on camera. Eventually, the camera lingers on a tasteless but unconvincing foetus until the instant grudge karma gets the yakuza off-camera, while we continue looking at the rubber thing for half a minute or so, with yakuza screaming in the background and some grudge-y CGI vapours rocking around the foetus. All of which rubs badly against the good-natured creepiness of the other segments but does suggest that Kodama likes a bit of variety, which can only be a good thing in a series this long and simply structured. I also can’t help but admire the chutzpah needed to go for the final shot of the story.