Howling Village (2019) Review

 

Summary (No Spoilers):

Howling Village (2019) follows a streamer and her boyfriend exploring the urban legend of Inunaki Tunnel, only for her to die strangely shortly after. This is only the beginning of a series of strange deaths by drowning, all connected to this village. This is the first movie in a trilogy, though all can be watched independently.

---

In-Depth Review (Spoilers Ahead!):

 

A streamer named Akina convinces her boyfriend Yuma to explore the Inunaki Tunnel, starting with a haunted phone booth that rings at 2AM. This section is filmed like a livestream, including cheesy little moments, and it's a super fun introduction.

The couple enters the tunnel into a strange destroyed village. Strange things happen to Akina, and she becomes so terrified Yuma has to chase her and calm her down so they can leave. This part is really creepy, especially with the distressed screaming from Akina's actress.

Yuma has a sister named Kanade, who is working at a hospital with a young boy who sees things he shouldn't (and it seems Kanade sees them too), but when Yuma contacts her to help with Akina, who has been acting strange, Kanade comes to try to help.

Akina's actress does an amazing job at creating an unsettling atmosphere, as she mumbles a weird song that's completely out of place for her personality. It gets worse when she wanders off, as the youngest brother Kota discovers her walking off as she pees, acting really strange.

Kota pops in to tell his older siblings, and Yuma chases after Akina, who calls him as she plummets to her death right in front of his face. It's a gruesome, really memorable kill, especially the way her fingers twitch and she spits out water after.

At Akina's funeral, it turns out she drowned, a strange situation that's occurred in a string of deaths in the past, and Kanade's father seems to be aware, as he's been making strangely aggressive remarks to Kanade's mother about her filthy blood.

Kanade visits Kota, who is working on a project modeling the whole village. He worries this will curse him too.

Yuma, distraught from what happened, returns to explore the tunnel against the wishes of his friends, and his brother Kota sneaks in to join him, but they are captured by strange spirits of the dead, including Akina. The movements of the spirits are really interesting, as they blur and move at heightened speeds, and this creates for a stressful viewing with a little kid in danger. 

Kanade is left with her distraught mother and her worried father as they examine the tunnel her siblings became lost in. Her mother acts strangely aggressive, growling and biting her father, like something took hold of her. It's a disturbing scene, as it heralds the mother's downfall mentally.

 

There's a strange scene in the hospital with Kanade and the little boy she works with, where they enter a strange dream and encounter the dying old doctor, who offers cryptic warnings about the water coming, reflected by a scene with Yuma's friends becoming trapped in the phone booth and drowning as the spirits attack it, a visually fascinating use of the blur over the dead to add an unreal quality.

Kanade later demands answers from her father and learns that their blood was mixed, and he's grown scared of them all, but he offers little more, so she visits her grandfather, who reminds her of the time spent with her grandmother, who could see spirits just like Kanade. It seems the grandmother was abandoned as a child from another unknown village... so it's clear where that's going.

This provides a lead as Kanade meets a strange spirit of a man she's seen since childhood, and the man shows her an old recording of what happened in Howling Village.

 

There were dog killers who lived in the village until a company came in, promising them prosperity and happiness but showing their true intentions in the end; the villagers were tied up and watched their village get destroyed as rumors were spread of them mating with dogs so none would care what happened to them. The dog killers were caged and mistreated, the village sinking for the reservoir to be built over their watery grave, and becoming nothing more than a story. A genuinely chilling and compelling moment, and its loose reflection of real history makes it all the more gutting.

Kanade becomes distraught learning she's a dog killer, but the strange man won't let her look away, demanding she not forget them, these tortured people who suffered and died, left as a quiet footnote in history, nothing more than an urban legend to the world. She tries to wipe it off of herself, and the dog killers are projected onto her white shirt, creating a stunning visual symbolism. The spirits seem to use this as an excuse to come out from her body, and Kanade leaves in distress. 

The strange man (his name seemingly Keisuke) is now alone, and he watches a beautiful woman named Maya on the film, clearly his lost lover.

Kanade returns home, only to find it covered in graffiti calling them dog killers, and she finds her distressed father who can only try to comfort her mother, who seems to be acting like a dog with her hands and eating off the floor. She sings that same song at Kanade.

Kanade leaves them be and remembers the rattling sound from the phone booth in Kota's village display, so she opens it to reveal a memory card, which she watches to see the video of Akina and Yuma. This shows her the phone booth is the key to entering.

 

 

Kanade manages to enter the village, finding Keisuke on the way, and they see her brothers locked in a cage outside, but the keys are inside, so they enter, only to find Maya having given birth. Keisuke rips the umbilical cord with his teeth, giving Kanade the baby and begging her to leave, even as Maya fights back, desperately wanting her baby.

Kanade heads out to free her brothers, and they try to escape through the tunnels, only for Maya to catch up with them, her body movements strange and unusual as her features distort, the eerieness complete with a bloody and unsettling werewolf-like transformation. Keisuke tries to stop her, but Yuma has to help, leaving him trapped in the village.

This allows for Kanade and Kota to escape, and they pass out outside their grandfather's house with the baby seemingly appearing in the past, creating a stable loop for the family to exist.

Kanade and Kota awaken in the hospital, realizing the sacrifice Yuma made for them, and eventually Kanade has to identify her brother's body, where two skeletal figures are grotesquely attached to him, like weights. It seems he drowned in the reservoir, just as the villagers did all those years ago, in thanks to their restless spirits.

Kanade is later seen again with that little boy, and it becomes clear his true mother was the spirit following him, and when he turns to look, his features distort, revealing his dog killer blood. Kanade's expression soon morphs to reflect those features as well, ending the movie on an uncertain note for what that means for the future of those with dog killer blood or how they came to have such traits.

All these questions add to the fascinating layers to this movie, the type of movie that needs to be watched many times to pick up the smallest details, making it a constant effort in unraveling its mysteries, and that appeal with its tight yet confusing detail work is why I've decided to rate this movie 5/5.