Seance

This made-for-TV movie is tighter in narrative and slightly less bleak than other Kurosawa works. The ghosts are pretty creepy (and to my mind that is even better than scary) but the real point of the film is to depict an ordinary Japanese couple, amiable and law-abiding, who become criminals in a desperate attempt to transcend their very ordinariness. Kurosawa is a real auteur, and this film--although a lesser work--enriches his achievement.

Kurosawa treats composition and expectation almost interchangeably: when he fills the screen with negative space, you know there's no way it will end well. As a result this film, like his others, oozes creepy seemingly without effort. Yet by the end, the true horror comes not from ghosts, but from the characters' own defeated expectations and insecurities about their future. That's probably scarier.

lol FFD

probably would've been a lot more effective if i had seen it in 2000 before an entire 10+ years of the same japanese horror shtick

It's a great looking film. The way Kiyoshi Kurosawa composes shots, utilizes depth of field, and moves the camera are all at a higher level than the script demands. There are fleeting glimpses of strong creepy visuals; they aren't anything groundbreaking that you haven't seen before but they're executed exceptionally well. As I've found tends to be the case with Kurosawa's films, his directorial prowess is marginally stronger than the material he's working with.

All the black comedy and human drama of the original is thrown out the window. Also gone is the dominating wife with delusions of psychic grandeur; now she's a typical meek, subservient Japanese wife, and a REAL medium. Apparently the Japanese won't watch a horror/suspense film unless it has goddamn ghosts in it. And you guessed it: the ghost is a creepy slow-moving girl with long stringy hair covering her face. ATTENTION JAPAN: YOUR LITTLE GIRLS AREN'T SCARY ANYMORE.