Japan
Review: JA Kerswell
Based on an obscure Japanese horror video game, HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE is a similarly little-known supernatural slasher movie by prolific low-to-mid-budget genre director Kôtarô Terauchi. A female journalist is tasked with investigating an unsolved murder that leads her to uncover an urban legend about a pumpkin-headed, axe-wielding killer who commits a massacre each Halloween night. Unwittingly, she places herself on his kill list.
Saki (Aki Asakura) dreams of working for a fashion magazine, but ends up writing for a low-rent paranormal monthly simply because she knows Photoshop, where she is tasked with faking ghost and UFO images for the publication. Bored and out of inspiration, her editor, Hashimoto (Tetsuya Nakanishi), suggests she look into an unsolved murder from last Halloween because he suspects alien involvement. She discusses her assignment with her best friend, Karou (Erina), who is perplexed that—considering she works for a magazine about the supernatural—she has never heard of the urban legend Jack O’Lantern, the pumpkin ghost who appears each Halloween to kill and can only be assuaged by the offer of candy. In turn, Saki is surprised that it is a Japanese urban legend, given its origins outside the country.
Hashimoto uses a police contact to learn that a massacre has occurred every Halloween in Japan for the past decade, with the body count rising by one each year—meaning that this coming Halloween eleven people might fall victim to the pumpkin-headed killer. They are especially puzzled that the deaths can occur hours apart in different parts of Japan, leading them to suspect a cult or multiple killers. With fellow journalist Yamamoto (Noriyuki Fuse), the editor tracks down the first killing a decade ago to a teenage boy involved in a scandal with a female student. With the help of Karou, Saki finds the now-adult woman who is in a wheelchair and lives with her mother, who suggests the killings may be linked to a mysterious pumpkin seller.
A disturbing element of the crimes is that the last known photo of each victim has the victim’s time of death burned into it. When Saki discovers that both she and Karou’s most recent photo also contains a time of death, she must race against the clock to help them survive beyond Halloween night …
Terauchi tips his hat early on that the killer in HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE is not a man in a mask, but rather some supernatural demon in the film’s very first sequence, where Jack O’Lantern appears out of a vortex of black smoke and axes a man to death who is awoken by banging at his door. This takes away some of the film's mystery. Although I won’t spoil the exact solution, it will come as little surprise to anyone who has seen even a handful of Japanese horror movies made post THE RING (1999) and JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002) that HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE contains both a curse and a grudge of sorts.
Like many Japanese subgenre efforts, Terauchi doesn’t strictly adhere to the setup we normally associate with North American slashers (although the film benefits from its culture clashing over All Hallows’ Eve). In fact, the majority of the movie deals with the investigation into the urban legend, the murders, and the subsequent quest for the truth. The film shows only two on-screen deaths (in the aftermath), but it closes with an effectively staged, exciting chase scene between Saki and the demonic killer as she tries to outwit the axe-carrying entity and make it to midnight to survive. It is just a shame there weren’t more of these elements in the film—especially as it teases a body count of eleven.
Admittedly, the script occasionally trips itself up with its internal logic (on one hand suggesting the murders have spanned 20 years, then saying it is ten, and then stating that initially the deaths are connected, only to reveal the victims are chosen at random). Not to mention the claim that police have hushed up reports of all 55 victims to avoid panic! The film does feature a few decently creepy moments (specifically Saki’s nightmare that Jack O’Lantern is at her front door), but Terauchi (who, as usual, indulges in his fascination with hidden/surveillance cameras) seems less interested in creating a feeling of dread than in a horror romp, probably more in keeping with the video game it is based on. Albeit a bit hokey, Jack O’Lantern is a fun slasher villain, but the film would have benefited from more screen time for him and trimming the investigative elements. Whilst certainly entertaining on its own modest merits, the director’s THE SCISSORS MASSACRE (2008) (the standalone sequel to Kôji Shiraishi’s CARVED: THE SLIT-MOUTHED WOMAN (2007); films which also deal with the idea of an urban legend coming to life) is a quirky, but much more satisfying slasher movie experience.
HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE is based on a 2013 PC game, one of many small, independently produced horror video games from that era (and one of the many low-budget movie adaptations). It received a super-limited theatrical release in Tokyo before quickly heading to DVD. That same year, Yousuke Yamashita directed a standalone sequel, unsurprisingly titled HALLOWEEN NIGHTMARE 2, which is more of a supernatural teen drama that barely features the Jack O’Lantern killer.
BODY COUNT 2:
Female 1 / Male 1
