Grave Halloween Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A girl tries to make peace with the death of her mom by dragging a bunch of idiots into the infamous suicide forest of Japan.

Review: For the final Halloween movie of this year I wanted to do something special. So I searched high and low in the hope that there would actually be an Asian horror movie that took place on Halloween. This was the best I could come up with--a half-assed sci-fi channel original. FUCK...this is going to be wonderful. Come on Asia, you're sitting on an untapped plot device! I can picture it now... Makoto Myers: stalks schoolgirls on Halloween...huh, huh?! Fine, I'll make it myself. I know there are still a handful of Halloween-themed horror movies out there, but, unfortunately, I couldn't get to them all; next year I'll finish and probably start exploring family movies.

Where to begin with this movie? It's not that it's completely horrible, but it's stupid and lacked any sense of direction. They simply cherry-picked ideas from better movies and mushed them together in the hope it would make sense. It didn't. Dumbest of all was the lack of Japanese characters in a film set in Japan; the only Japanese actors are background players and, of course, know English. The main characters are all conveniently international students who, apparently, made no Japanese friends while staying in Japan. The characters can't speak Japanese either, and they joke about this; they pretend like the main girl can speak and read it but, clearly, she cannot. They don't even know basic shit like what a yurei or okaasan are! Okaasan, really?! Rika, darling, do you believe this shit? Now, I'm not saying I'm some master of everything Japanese, but, seriously, come the fuck on, man! And aren't these idiots supposed to be film students? You could learn more than this from a single "Ju-on" movie. Finally, that main girl, Maiko, played by Kaitlyn Leeb, is cute, but she's not Japanese despite the movie claiming otherwise; she's probably best known as the triple-titted woman from the "Total Recall" remake.

You may be wondering what the hell does any of this have to do with Halloween. Well, nothing really. They clearly used it as a marketing gimmick with a character or two saying "Happy Halloween" and one lonely pumpkin in a single shot. The only way it connects to the plot is that Maiko supposedly must perform a ritual that can only be done on Halloween--called segaki; segaki is like a purifying process to alleviate spirits of their past misdeeds or whatever. While some people do, indeed, perform this ritual on Halloween, they didn't start that until recently so the urgency of this ritual in the plot is questionable. Anyway, Maiko has decided to make a documentary out of her attempt to do the segaki ritual on her mother's spirit. Maiko's mother committed suicide in Japan's infamous suicide forest called Aokigahara. This was the best idea going for this film since it's a truly disturbing, real life setting. The only reason why I think Japan doesn't use the setting themselves is because they're trying to discourage people from going there as it is. I actually wrote a story that started off in Aokigahara. Should I post it?

I don't really understand the logistics of Maiko's mother committing suicide, but somehow she sent personal belongings to Maiko in order to lure her out there; this makes little sense by the end. Maiko tries to find the exact tree the mom hung herself from which is pretty stupid to do in a place also nicknamed the "Sea of Trees." The group coincidentally runs into a weird Japanese guy speaking English as well as cops or something. We get the typical get out of the forest/respect the dead spiel we've heard a million times that no one listens to. Making matters worse are more white kids playing pranks. Oh good lord. Blah blah blah the spirits get mad and start killing people. The deaths are pretty lame as well, but what do you expect when this was made for TV. Then there is supposed to be a twist that the weird guy they ran into is actually a ghost and a pissed off zombie. Hell if I know.

The movie's remaining running time is comprised predominantly by a bunch of screaming in the woods with minor instances of Sadako clones running around. With everybody dead, Maiko does come across her mom's body, and we learn she's evil or whatever. I'm going out on a limb here to explain this but...I guess the mom wanted to become an evil spirit, because she's crazy, and took random items from other suiciders (not a real word) to make her request to Maiko appear sincere. Then I guess she wanted to kill Maiko as she originally planned to do when Maiko was a child. Maiko also had a sister who was killed by the mom when people came to institutionalize her. Something like that at least. It makes no sense really. Plus, how did the mom mail that shit...by owl? You're a wizard, Maiko! Eventually Maiko is helped by the ghost of the sister in order to escape the forest. Okay, why is the sister haunting this forest if she was murdered at her house like 10 or more years ago? The cops magically show up to end this fiasco, but Maiko realizes that dead, weird guy from earlier is driving. Oh noooess...the zinger!

I was hoping to end this Halloween with a bang, but we are going out with a whimper. This movie is bad. It had potential, no doubt about that, but it squandered it quite readily. Nothing makes any sense, and they mindlessly incorporated too many slasher tropes in, what should be, a ghost story. There are decent moments, but they are overshadowed by the extraordinary moments of idiocy. Ms. Leeb was okay as the lead, but everyone else was atrocious and their characters were inconsistently sensitive to Japanese customs while other times not giving a flying fuck. I liked the use of Aokigahara, but putting a bunch of clueless foreigners running around in it was the worst move possible. This is an easy pass, and a prime example of how not to do Asian horror. Oh well. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Notable Moment: When you see the token, plastic pumpkin sitting on a table. That's it? That's the best you got? A plastic pumpkin you probably found at a yard sale that day of shooting? Oh for fuck's sake.

Final Rating: 4/10