Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: A Japanese anthology series that focuses on potentially realistic weirdos, creeps, and killers.
Review: I don't really know the background on this series--whether these were made-for-TV specials or what. Likewise, the title's meaning is unclear as well; some have said it's meaning is "people are creepy" or scary while I think the subtitles suggested to "fear the people." Anyone have inside information for clarity? Regardless, this theme about people being scary is certainly present in all the segments. Each movie is roughly an hour long and contains 5 stories of varying length and quality. While these shorts aren't going to knock your socks off, they're surprisingly entertaining. I often focus on supernatural things unnerving me, but obviously these were made for those more chilled by real life wackos. In this respect, "Hitokowa" nails it. Finally, I want to acknowledge I went by the subtitles and translations presented by Amazon. These may or may not be the most accurate so bear with me. Okay, now let's take a look at what these stories have to offer, shall we?
Hitokowa 1: Evil Comes Home
A Friend's Secret: Two girls are hanging out reluctantly after the one has broken up with her boyfriend, and the other has sorta invited herself over unexpectedly. At first they're awkward, but, throughout the night, the two loosen up and have fun. All seems okay until you realize the one girl discovered her boyfriend was cheating on her and chopped the guy up in her bathroom. We then come to realize the girl he cheated with was the friend that came over. Uh oh. After seemingly stopping for snacks, the one girl comes home, locks the door, and is ready to test out some new knives she just bought! The moral of the story is DO NOT cheat on Japanese girls.
Wrong Number: In this next tale, friends are on some kind of group date or whatever. The one girl awkwardly exchanges numbers with the guy she likes, but it's more of an email or something? I'm not entirely sure if this is some kind of plot contrivance or something that happens in Japan. Anyway, as the title would imply, the girl doesn't get the email/number exact and inadvertently contacts a psychopath that begins to stalk her home after she tries to set up a date. Arriving home safe and sound, the girl takes a bath and realizes she missed a call. When she calls her friend back they discuss her brother answering while she was in the bathtub. Not having any siblings we get a cool shot of the camera slightly rotating with a shadowy figure rising in the background with the camera spin. Our lead is then sliced and diced. This was mostly predictable, but I enjoyed the way the material was handled nonetheless.
Raised by Wolves: This is the shortest entry out of the movies and probably the worst as well. It feels like they shoehorned it in to get five stories without messing with the running time. All that really happens is some girl is almost hit by a bottle from the apartment above her. There are two bratty kids who find it funny that they almost hurt her. Later, when with a friend, the two remark that the parents are responsible for the kids' bad behavior, hence the title. Then the friend is killed by a dropped plant pot except this time it was the parents doing it. Eh, there could have been more to this tale that's for sure.
What Happens When You Google Yourself: This was one of the better stories for sure; it goes in a direction you wouldn't anticipate which is always welcome. Three girls are discussing the strange results that can appear when searching your own name on Google. Later on, the main girl decides she will finally check things out only to discover videos of some guy feverishly masturbating while, apparently, wearing her underwear. Calling up her friend to discuss how gross this is, the main girl notices that the guy uploaded these videos from her house. Angered by the girl saying he was disgusting, the guy comes out of her closest, where he was hiding, and ready to do god knows what to our poor girl. The crazy part is that this phenomenon of people hiding in someone else's house has happened before and in Japan no less. For me, the scariest part was this guy's pancake tits flopping around. What was that?!
Phone Call from the Other Side: Okay, so this series has like one rule--actual, living scary people--and they already break that rule in this tale. Sorta. Some business guy is at a cafe or something when an old high school friend spots him. The two discuss staying in touch but the other guy says he doesn't use any kind of phone due to a bizarre experience that he regales us with. Bothered by a phone constantly ringing in a park nearby, the guy answers it but is led on a strange trip by the caller. As it turns out, the caller is a ghost, and the main guy has the ability to talk to ghosts through the phone. In turn, other ghosts decide they want to pester the man until he helps them. Finally, this tale does come back to being about a real killer as the guy gets a call at the cafe. This time the caller is the businessman's ex-fiance that he killed. I should probably mention the tone of this segment is somewhat lighthearted so they weren't really trying to creep the audience out this time around.
Hitokowa 2: Deadly Hauntings
Pet Monitor: Kicking off the second movie isn't the best of tales. A cute yet timid office girl is afraid to discipline one of her workers. This worker simply watches her dog on her laptop all day while screwing up whatever work she manages to do. There is something with the main girl having an affair with her boss who, in turn, also seemingly had an affair with the lazy worker lady. After getting yelled at himself, the boss finally works up the balls to yell at the bum himself. The next day the boss doesn't show up for work, and, through shenanigans, the main chick notices the boss' severed hand in the cage with the dog that is being watched. And that's really it. I mean, you knew something like this was going to happen, but it could have had better shock value or something.
Snake and First Love: This was probably the second shortest story and the second worst as well. Some kid is pranked by his friends with a fake snake, scaring him. The kids then appear to play Pokemon or something on their Nintendo DS until the friends leave. Being teased about his crush earlier, the main kid tries to scare the girl he likes, however, she backs up into the street to avoid the fake snake and is hit by a car. When the cops try to figure out what happened, the kid, I guess, embraces the dark side and hides the truth. The end? Uh, okay. Not sure what was the point, and things don't really fit the tone since the kid wasn't intentionally trying to kill the girl.
A Couple's Promise: After the first tales were a bit lackluster, we come to the best story in the series. This is how you do subversion of expectations correctly (looking at you, Rian Johnson). A business guy keeps checking the picture of his pregnant wife before submitting to the temptation of ordering an escort or however things work with Japan's sex industry. I don't know the name of the actress, but, the girl that shows up, Akemi, is really cute and sexy. She warns the business guy that she has burn scars on her body, and most men reject her outright; in fact, she's pretty much untouched and about to get fired. The business guy says he doesn't care--does a lot of lying in fact--and bangs our dear Akemi. Akemi becomes smitten with the guy since we learn she has been sheltered from men, and the burns are from her mom trying to make Akemi ugly to men. Furthermore, Akemi has added herself to the business guy's phone. The next night, or some time later, the business guy orders a new escort and explicitly says not to send Akemi and that she's gross. Big surprise, guess who shows up at the guy's door? That's right, it's our sexy girl herself. Now, you probably think this is a tale about a cheating husband getting his comeuppance, but that's where you'd be very wrong! So Akemi breaks into the guy's room and reveals that she has cut off her fingertips psychotically. Once Akemi mentions she has even visited the business guy's house, he suddenly snaps and beats our girl to death. Womp womp. Going back home, it is revealed that the businessman is the true killer, having killed his pregnant wife who he said was a cheater. What works so well with this story is how the filmmakers go out of their way to create a typical setup with how crazy Akemi is; at the same time, the businessman just seems ripe to get his just deserts. You don't really see it coming that he has already killed his wife and even talks casually to her rotting corpse.
Akemi...wish I could tell you her real name.
Don't Leave Your Bicycle Here: A bratty girl incites the anger of a random psycho is the best way to describe this one. Since bikes are a big dealio in Japan, the main girl doesn't want to pay to park it so she leaves it in a neighborhood, catching the ire of a crazy guy. At first the girl receives notes saying to stop it, but then things escalate with the guy putting razors on the breaks. At the same time, the girl leaves bottles all over the place and Japan also hates littering big time. Finally, the crazy guy follows her path home and throws her bike at her from a rooftop, killing her, and dropping all the bottles she's left all over on top of her body. He then uploads this to the internet and we see a random user not even impressed by this murder. Hmm. Tough audience. Eh, this is an okay tale for what it is, and you're left wondering what direction they will take the material.
Common Interests: This is probably the second best story overall which makes this second "Hitokowa" movie the highlight of the trio. To close things out we have a group of friends trying to tell ghost stories and scare each other; there are four friends and they're couples so it's two girlfriends and two boyfriends. The main chick looks a lot like a singer from Morning Musume named Kaede Kaga so I'm going to refer to her as such. The other boyfriend tries to show off a ghost photo, but Kaede becomes annoyed that he was taking pictures of her and her boyfriend. As a consequence, Kaede steals the memory card for the other boyfriend's camera. Once the party ends and everyone leaves, Kaede decides to check out these photos the guy took. By the way, I kind of like the chemistry between the couples--things feel genuine to a degree. Anyway, Kaede watches a video file that shows a girl being beaten and decapitated by a masked man. Slowing down the footage, Kaede realizes that the masked guy is the boyfriend that owns the camera, and it's his own snuff video. Appearing behind Kaede, and seemingly breaking into the apartment, that other boyfriend tries to reassure Kaede that it's just a joke. Not buying it, Kaede's boyfriend comes back after missing his train just in time to help...or so it would seem. Once Kaede's boyfriend realizes she saw the video they decide they will do to her what they did to the girl on the video. Then we see the full video which showed the two boyfriends were both there killing two different girls respectively. The moral of this story is that you can never really know for sure if your significant other likes to chop up bodies in their spare time!
Hitokowa girl (L), Kaede Kaga (R)
Try and tell me these two couldn't be sisters.
Hitokowa 3: The Killing Hour
Lost Property: To begin the third movie we have two schoolgirls trying to figure out how to make some money. While walking home, the main girl finds a wallet full of money and thinks she hit the jackpot. Unfortunately, the wallet belongs to the local serial killer as the contents also include bloody fingernails and photos of the victims. The girl thinks she's being pursued by some guy, however, he's just another concerned citizen that doesn't like bikes parked where they shouldn't be! Only in Japan. The girl finally comes across a police officer to report the wallet, but, in actuality, the wallet belongs to the policeman. Gotcha, bitch! Although it's broad daylight and out in the open, the killer cop somehow adds the schoolgirl to his collection of photos. Sometime later we see the other schoolgirl from earlier coming across the wallet in the same location, implying the killer uses it as a lure. Eh, this was okay for what it is. I mean, revealing your identity as the killer is pretty damn stupid, but I don't think we are meant to ponder too deeply about the logistics of the killer's M.O.
Can't Be Seen: Now this is another good example of pulling a fast one on the audience with subtlety. A girl is creeped out by a pale old woman that lurks outside of her apartment building. The old woman simply stands and stares, however, the girl notices a marking on one of the electric poles. This marking appears to be some kind of curse. With each passing day, the girl is followed and glared at by the old lady while more markings appear on the same pole. Eventually, the old woman confronts the main girl by following her up to her apartment. It's here that we get the switcheroo that makes more sense upon a second viewing. The old woman was actually putting up missing posters for her cat that were being ripped down by the main girl. The main girl was actually the one putting up the cursed markings; the main girl hopes to kill her roommate with the curse. The main girl then kills the old woman, and we realize she is simply biding her time until the roommate will die. The editing in this particular segment is brilliant. We see the events depicted as if they're the reverse, but when you re-watch you'll notice the cat posters and the main chick's disdain for the roommate and annoyance with the old lady making her have to put up more markings. It's great.
Forever Together: This entry disappointed me since it has an interesting buildup, but doesn't really go anywhere with the plot line. A girl breaks up with her boyfriend, and, at first, he appears to deal with things fine enough. Sometime later, the boyfriend sneaks into the girl's house and tries to act like things are perfectly normal between the two. Trying to cook dinner, the guy is kicked out of the girl's house but not before stabbing himself in the hand. Changing her locks, the girl once more comes home to the realization that the boyfriend has broken in. This time around he has hanged himself, yet, magically, he isn't dead from this. The fan he was hanging from snaps and he crawls toward the frightened girl only to die for real this time...seemingly. We cut further in time again, and the girl's sister is getting married. Surprise, it's the boyfriend alive somehow as we see the scar on his hand from the knife wound. And that's basically it. The girl does think he looks like her boyfriend yet shrugs it off. There's no real payoff here.
A Girl in Red: So this is Japan's take on a Western urban legend which is kinda cool. Some business lady is driving wherever when she sees a little girl in the middle of the road. For whatever reason, the business girl gets out of her car to see what's up with this little girl. After the little girl runs away, the business lady stops for gas where she is treated rudely by the guy at the gas station. When she tries to pay, the gas station attendant says the money is counterfeit and appears to attack the lady. But, surprise, he was trying to warn the lady that "SOMEONE'S IN THE BACKSEAT!" As it turns out, the little girl serves as a distraction to let the killer slip into unsuspecting motorists' cars. The story ends with both the business lady and gas station attendant getting killed. Yeah, we've all heard this tale before, but it fascinates me that an urban legend like this can spread all the way to Japan.
Diet: I'd love to say things close out strongly for this trilogy, however, this story wasn't doing it for me. In fact, this is kind of another standout entry in that it tries to gross you out rather than scare. Two friends are having lunch together when the one girl mentions she has a date coming up. The other friend jokes that she should go easy on the food then in order to stay thin. Look, these chicks are both in my twig classification so they both should keep eating! I'll take some curves from that Akemi babe! Anyway, the one girl begins to diet--as the title suggests--and things spiral out of control. At first she's eating almost nothing which transitions into not eating at all. Worried about her ailing friend, the other chick tries to get diet-girl to eat something. Long story short, we get some dream sequence filler, but the payoff comes when diet-girl makes "food" that won't give you extra calories. Can you guess what it is? Did you guess it was puked up noodles? Yummy. And that's essentially all there is to this tale. I think this entry should have switched with the first story to give this movie a better sense of pacing.
All things considered, these are some fun little tales. They're short, they're sweet, and even the worst entries still offer entertainment value. These movies are low-budget--which includes a whole host of inherent problems--so you need to cut them a degree of slack in that regard, but the filmmakers are able to accomplish quite a bit in spite of this. Most importantly, these are scary stories that completely ignore long-haired ghost women and other supernatural forces; it's certainly a welcome change of pace. If you're interested in any or all segments listed here then be sure to seek these movies out. I think you will be pleasantly surprised and impressed with the quality and variety of stories.
Notable Moment: I think the single best moment is during the "Wrong Number" segment. At the end, the way the camera pivots in coordination with the shadowy killer emerging is plain slick.
Final Rating: Part 1 (6/10)
Part 2 (6.5/10)
Part 3 (5.5/10)
Overall (6/10)
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