Howling Village (2020)

Back at it again with building the atmosphere…

And not relying solely on jump scares. While it did not have a well structured plot nor interesting characters, it still managed to present an interesting style of filming with ambiguous and distorted visuals.

That said, I did enjoy it more for the “vibe” and not the plot itself. I don’t think the story had much to offer. The mystery and the past was presented in an unnecessarily confusing way and some bits of it were added just for the shock value, as they made little sense in the context of the plot itself.

They spent quite some time building up the female lead and her ability to see ghosts, while it had little to no impact on the story itself. And there were quite a few random plot points that were there just to fill the screen time. Since they took their sweet time with that first act and second act, the ending seemed rushed making the pacing of the whole movie seem a bit off.

Acting wise I don’t have any complaints. Big props to Miyano Hina who played Maya - the girl had some moves. Miyoshi Ayaka as the lead felt flat. With that type of story and with how much her character was involved in it, the emotions seemed just too diluted.

The visuals though were truly nice. There were a number of scenes I thought were cleverly shot and presented.

Overall, a nice watch, but there are other movies I would recommend before this one.

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