Director Koji Shiraishi is personally responsible for many Japanese horror classics, including Noroi: The Curse, Grotesque, Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, and most recently, the ridiculously fun Sadako vs. Kayako. Apart from those, his track record within the genre shows an understanding of weaving dark humor into the horror. Shiraishi’s latest, appropriately titled House of Sayuri, presents another memorably original addition to his filmography. Juggling wild tonal shifts, graphic murders, and a creepy, appropriately J-horror ghost girl with a twist, House of Sayuri sandwiches together two vastly different halves for a satisfyingly bizarre dose of foreign chills.
Right at the beginning, we get a nasty taste of the titular ghost’s rage. A bloated, overweight young woman named Sayuri (Haruka Kubo) swings open her bedroom door, brandishing a crowbar and inching towards her distressed mother. House of Sayuri next flashes forward ten years later, when the new Kamiki family relocates to that very same house. At first, their living situation seems too good to be true. Teenage Norio (Ryoka Minamide) and his younger brother, Shun (Ray Inomata), take a room on the second floor, featuring a beautiful balcony. Keiko (Kokoro Morita), their sister, runs to pick a room on the first, and the rest go to parents Akio (Zen Kajihara) and Masako (Fusako Urabe), and grandparents Shozo (Kitaro) and Harue (Toshie Negishi). Before long, strange occurrences begin to play out on a nightly basis. A giggling ghost girl, glitching television sets, a bloated figure lurking just out of focus—all the trademarks of J-horror are here, particularly in the film’s tense and disturbing first half.
Sumida (Hana Kondo), a potentially psychic girl Norio has befriended from school, warns him many times to simply leave the house, but would there even be a movie if he did? The group has plenty of chances to depart multiple times over. Lest one fears a slow-burn brand of spooky happenings, the pace becomes relentless after an apparent possession occurs. The Kamiki family dies one by one; to Norio’s surprise, his hardened grandmother emerges to take control of an increasingly unnerving situation. Harue trains Norio in Tai Chi, to harness their life force in battle against the powers of Sayuri left lingering. But Sayuri, as with many vengeful spirits, does not plan to go down without a fight. That this happens almost exactly halfway into the movie makes for an interesting direct divide. One half seems tense and quite creepy, while the other is much lighter and comedic. Still, yet another curveball sure to divide audiences arrives once the truth behind Sayuri’s unending torment finally gets revealed.
Along the way, we bear witness to a swath of disturbing deaths and horrific trauma. Harue’s grand plot to take down Sayuri and avenge her family may be just as awful as Sayuri’s ghostly anguish. Moral questions arise, and the overt silliness of the scenario often blends in a weird way with their subtext. Norio’s love story with his classmate is not believable on any level, particularly given their lack of chemistry and never kissing even once. But there’s a simple charm here that allows minor flaws to fall by the wayside. A scene involving tentacles near the end doubles down on how seriously we should be taking any of what occurs. At times, House of Sayuri almost comes across as an anime in nature.
A duo of screenwriters in Mari Asato and Koji Shiraishi miraculously juggle the tonal shifts of manga author Rensuke Oshikiri’s many moving parts, particularly as they approach a final faceoff in the gripping climax. Koji Shiraishi’s direction anchors a surprisingly moving moment near the end. How refreshing that rather than falling prey to an endless cycle a la Ju-On: The Grudge, this family fights back, led by their badass, dementia-ridden grandmother. Strange and unusual, tragic and affecting, bizarre and hilarious, House of Sayuri masterfully blends horror with comedy.
House of Sayuri screened at 2024’s Fantasia International Film Festival.
