Summary (No Spoilers):
Tokyo Videos of Horror (2012) is a series of short found footage stories, all following the premise of supernatural occurrences being documented by coincidence. This is the first of the series.
In-Depth Review (Spoilers Ahead!):
Late Summer Night
A couple are recording their time playing with fireworks when they see the figure of a young girl run off into the night. They decide to follow the young girl, hearing strange noises along the way, and find the young girl's dead body.
Information uncovered about the young girl shows she was possibly killed by her father, but it is not clear if her father truly killed her based on the confusing words her ghost was speaking on the recording.
This is disturbing and sad content, but it did fall a little short in terms of comprehension, though that might've been from the unclear subtitles.
The Passerby
A group of friends are on a fishing trip, enjoying a nice BBQ. They decide to return home, but end up in a car accident on the drive back.
Footage from within the car shows them fooling around, but closer inspection shows a strange ghostly girl peering at them and getting inside of the car, making it seem like she might be responsible for their deaths.
This was really silly to look at, so it didn't hold up too well, but it did succeed in making me laugh.
Visiting Grave
A man and his boss head into the mountains on the strange request of their client, where they seek out a grave to perform a strange 2AM ritual. The 2AM ritual involves cutting along each corner of a string with paper wrapped around it with a sickle, among other detailed steps, and ends with prayer.
The boss becomes very sick after praying, collapsing to the ground. The man tries to check on his boss, but his boss continues to act oddly as he slowly rises back to his feet without responding to the man and runs away.
The man wanders in the dark, confused and frightened, even seeing strange floating heads come out at him as he goes.
The man eventually makes his way to his car. There, he finds the dead body of his boss within.
Later, once more research had been done on matters such as curses (where someone invokes the name of a religious figure in the wrong location and brings misfortune and death upon themselves), the man reflects on the situation and thinks about how happy the boss's wife had been with his death, due in large part to the mistreatment she received from the boss, who seemed to be a physically violent person.
There are many parts of this that reminded me heavily of Noroi: The Curse, especially the strong emphasis on rituals and curses and the way they are performed. This was the best part of this collection of short stories and the only one worth watching again.
Go Game
Two children are playing a game of Go with their grandfather. The grandfather leaves the frame and a ghostly face appears out of the wall, looking oddly like the Teletubby sun.
Apparently none in the video are still alive, as a fire burned down the home with all inside of it except for the owner of the video tape.
There's not much more to be said, as this is more fitting as a YouTube clip than it is a story.
Revenge
A pregnant woman is brought before two men because she's badly in debt. The men attack her, force her to take pills, and attempt to make her use a knife to cut herself open to film a disgusting video. What follows is plenty of violence and cruelty.
Afterwards, the woman's bloody corpse is on the ground with a very fake-looking fetus attached to an umbilical cord beside her, and the men try to take the body away to dispose of the evidence.
The baby's body begins to pour out with dark energy, and that energy chases the men into the bathroom and seems to take its revenge on them, killing them for what they've done... and then frolics about in the bathroom running all over the walls.
This was an uncomfortable watch and doesn't really fit with the supernatural theming of the other stories, making this an awkwardly combined set of short stories.
Movie Rating: 2/5
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