J-Horror Anthology Underworld (2004)
J-Horror Anthology Underworld (2004)
I like horror anthology films, they are to me like the joy of reading a collection of short stories, and if done right they are short bursts of terror that uses every available second without long segments of filler. The short story has deep roots in the horror genre, with Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft making the short story their bread and butter, and even for modern authors like Stephen King, some of his best stories are the short stories, and films are no exception from that. Look at films like Tales Of Terror, Tales From The Darkside, Creepshow, and Cats Eye, all great short story anthology films, and rank among some of my favourite films. Some like Cat's Eye or even Heavy Metal have short stories that are somehow linked, while others are completely
unrelated to each other. In J-Horror Anthology Underworld, we see Kadokawa the creator of Ring, Darkwater, and Ju-on The Grudge creating six horror shorts, each having its own moral story to tell.
J-Horror Anthology Underworld is a collection of six short horror films Chainmail, Left Behind On The Mountain, Tattoo, Viewfinder's Memory, Guardian Angel, and Mortuary. Chainmail deals with a chainmail text message that threatens that if you don't forward it to three people you will suffer the same fate as a dead girl who is pictured, and one girl realizes that whoever is sending it is killing her friends, while she does nothing but watches. Left Behind On The Mountain is a story about a sleazy guy who picks up girls, and takes them to a remote mountain overlook, where he just ditches them, but acts of evil have a way of being repaid. Tattoo is about a girl who gets a tattoo which is more than meets the eye. Viewfinder's Memory is about three friends that go to their friend's beach house, and they meet a strange, but familiar girl. Guardian Angel is about a girl who is at the end of her rope (literally), alone and penniless, but she can't seem to be able to kill herself, and in the end we find out why. Then in Mortuary an medical student at a hospital takes the body of a young boy to the mortuary, where he meets her mother, but he is not ready for the shock of what he is about to encounter...
J-Horror Anthology Underworld is directed by Hiroaki Hirakata, Hiroshi Ikezoe, Tatsuro Kashihara, Kasuo Koito, Eiji Satouchi, and Tadafumi Tomioka. The film was distributed by Global Fright Cinema in the USA. Honestly I had a hard time find out out much for information about this film, and since I can't read Japanese the actual credits on the DVD were useless to me, so I can't really say much else as far as who was in the film, or much else about the actual details of the film, so I guess I can only give my thoughts on the film.
I first watched this a few years go, and I didn't know what to expect when I first put it in. The film looks really good, exactly what I would expect for low budget Japanese horror, which I am a fan of. I thought the acting was pretty decent, and the actual cinematography looked pretty good for what it was. The film had some decent short stories, usually with a really good shocking climax. Each film is introduced and concluded by a narrator who tells a little bit about the story, and what we should learn from it. That reminds me Creepshow, or Tales From The Crypt, and I like that, it gave a classic EC Comics feel to it, with a Japanese twist, which I appreciated. Overall the stories were pretty decent, and most were kind of fun, and the I would say that this is a pretty great anthology of Japanese horror shorts. I would recommend checking it out if you are into low budget Japanese horror. I don't think that this is by any means a must-see film, but if you ever come across it for a good price I would recommend picking up a copy and checking it out. There is another J-Horror Anthology made by the same people that I want to try to find, which is J-Horror Anthology Legends, so if I ever find a copy of it, I will pick it up.
Note: I wish I could include a trailer for the film, but sadly all I could find on youtube was links to the full film, and as I have said before I will not post a link to a whole film video in the comments, I believe in actually purchasing a copy of the film, even if the film is in public domain.
unrelated to each other. In J-Horror Anthology Underworld, we see Kadokawa the creator of Ring, Darkwater, and Ju-on The Grudge creating six horror shorts, each having its own moral story to tell.
J-Horror Anthology Underworld is a collection of six short horror films Chainmail, Left Behind On The Mountain, Tattoo, Viewfinder's Memory, Guardian Angel, and Mortuary. Chainmail deals with a chainmail text message that threatens that if you don't forward it to three people you will suffer the same fate as a dead girl who is pictured, and one girl realizes that whoever is sending it is killing her friends, while she does nothing but watches. Left Behind On The Mountain is a story about a sleazy guy who picks up girls, and takes them to a remote mountain overlook, where he just ditches them, but acts of evil have a way of being repaid. Tattoo is about a girl who gets a tattoo which is more than meets the eye. Viewfinder's Memory is about three friends that go to their friend's beach house, and they meet a strange, but familiar girl. Guardian Angel is about a girl who is at the end of her rope (literally), alone and penniless, but she can't seem to be able to kill herself, and in the end we find out why. Then in Mortuary an medical student at a hospital takes the body of a young boy to the mortuary, where he meets her mother, but he is not ready for the shock of what he is about to encounter...
I first watched this a few years go, and I didn't know what to expect when I first put it in. The film looks really good, exactly what I would expect for low budget Japanese horror, which I am a fan of. I thought the acting was pretty decent, and the actual cinematography looked pretty good for what it was. The film had some decent short stories, usually with a really good shocking climax. Each film is introduced and concluded by a narrator who tells a little bit about the story, and what we should learn from it. That reminds me Creepshow, or Tales From The Crypt, and I like that, it gave a classic EC Comics feel to it, with a Japanese twist, which I appreciated. Overall the stories were pretty decent, and most were kind of fun, and the I would say that this is a pretty great anthology of Japanese horror shorts. I would recommend checking it out if you are into low budget Japanese horror. I don't think that this is by any means a must-see film, but if you ever come across it for a good price I would recommend picking up a copy and checking it out. There is another J-Horror Anthology made by the same people that I want to try to find, which is J-Horror Anthology Legends, so if I ever find a copy of it, I will pick it up.
Note: I wish I could include a trailer for the film, but sadly all I could find on youtube was links to the full film, and as I have said before I will not post a link to a whole film video in the comments, I believe in actually purchasing a copy of the film, even if the film is in public domain.
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