A Japanese Ghost Story That Turns the Screws

When a writer of Stephen King’s stature decides to praise a movie, it usually means said picture is frightfully good. As it turns out, “Never After Dark,” the Japanese horror film the author describes as “amazing and haunting,” is pretty good, if not exactly a classic. Revolving around a medium who helps ghosts get what they want so that they stop bothering the living, the movie is mostly scary in an old-fashioned but clever way, with familiar symbols like grandfather clocks and figures draped in sheets combining with practical effects to create a comfortably spooky experience. More modern tropes like J-horror cues and aspects of torture horror also reveal themselves to be part of the mix, ultimately leading to a film that’s both closely constructed and curiously eclectic.The feature’s eclecticism reflects its writer/director Dave Boyle (no relation to the acclaimed English director Danny Boyle). A Caucasian American who studied Japanese at Brigham Young, the filmmaker primarily works with Japanese casts and themes. “Never After Dark” marks his first foray into horror, after directing the Netflix series “House of Ninjas.” While Mr. Boyle’s love for Japanese horror and ghost stories is clear from the film’s spectral presence and visual uncanniness, his admiration for Hollywood and Hammer fright flicks materializes in the story’s setting at a former hotel, its offbeat humor, and Gothic elements. References to Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” dutifully emerge, yet the director never allows these quotations to overtake the narrative, instead applying them as markers meant to enhance the eerie mood while situating it within a tradition of cinematic nightmares.The film’s premise is a fairly standard haunted house-type setup, and yet there are delights in the way it’s told as well as in its tweaks to the lore. At the start, youthful ghost whisperer Airi arrives at a remote former inn where widow Teiko lives with her thirty-something son Gunji. Teiko has seen a shadowy figure in the kitchen, and the building exhibits strange behavior at times, such as an upper-floor door refusing to remain closed. Having heard of Airi’s abilities in encouraging spirits to move on, the antsy owner pays the medium to rid the building of its apparition. Airi agrees but has a few stipulations, including that the two must live elsewhere while she works and that she never works at night since the veil between the two worlds is “too thin” after dark, rendering her unearthly associates more powerful. Skeptical of not just his mother but Airi, too, Gunji tells the latter that all items in the hotel have been inventoried.Once ensconced in the former hotel, Airi soon spots the figure. Yet the young woman remains generally unfazed by the sighting, even though it appears to have a gaping gash for a mouth. Her intermittent communication with dead sister Miku, whom she sees in reflective surfaces and with whom she used to work, partly explains why she doesn’t seem bothered. Airi is a professional and confident that she will be able to compel the specter to leave, though Miku senses a more disturbing presence at play than just a trifling ghost.Mr. Boyle’s worldbuilding notably distinguishes itself via Airi’s process and tools of the trade, one of which is a round mirror surrounded by a rotating disc highlighting an entrancing sequence of images in the manner of a zoetrope. The metaphor with cinema is magnified when the use of this instrument takes our heroine to another dimension, an eerie, blue-lit realm where everything in the spatial environment is reversed and where she can engage with the entity. This otherworldly visit leads to her discovery of a tin containing teeth and eventually to the plot’s twist, which proves ingenious in the way it addresses the spacetime continuum and Airi’s avoidance of interaction with living humans. While the multiple motifs and inventive genre takes are alluring, it is Moeka Hoshi’s performance as Airi that holds it all together. By emphasizing the character’s relative calm, certainty, and cynicism without sacrificing her sensitive aspects and subtle humor, the actress serves as a stand-in for the seen-it-all viewer who approaches the material from a receptive remove. Ms. Hoshi’s candid facial expressions and asymmetrical hairstyle, which we learn is a product of her process, make her relatable and fetching — and a thoroughly fantastic lead. Actor Kento Kaku, who produced as well, also stands out as Gunji, who becomes a sort of love interest for Airi during a somewhat playful interlude before the tempests of the third act. A scene that perfectly encapsulates the film’s self-aware tone and its heroine’s potent duality — both matter-of-fact and mysterious — finds Gunji and Airi drinking beers while a painting by his mother depicting the menacing spirit hangs nearby. Mr. Boyle is aware of the tension that the painting creates and uses their flirting and the banality of the situation to both heighten the unease and subvert it. Some moviegoers might feel that the film devolves during its extended, frantic and violent finale, grinding into horror-thriller mechanics. That this is generally true, and that a key emotional throughline remains unexplored, doesn’t take away from its success as a smart update on the ghost story. From young cinematographer Patrick Ouziel’s shrewd camerawork and lighting director Hidenori Nagata’s striking use of natural and artificial lighting, to its bracing editing and small but agile cast, “Never After Dark” distinguishes itself as a stylishly gory exercise in genre filmmaking; one that can be appreciated by readers of Stephen King and Henry James alike.

A Japanese Ghost Story That Turns the Screws

A Japanese Ghost Story That Turns the Screws

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