Tokyo Videos of Horror 3 (2012) Review

 

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 third of the series.

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In-Depth Review (Spoilers Ahead!):

 

Mountain Pass At Night

 

A young man and his friend are driving at night when the friend begins to behave erratically, squatting and seemingly talking to no one as he opens the back car door to let in a strange figure with a half-destroyed face. When the friend gets into the car, he tells the young man he's taking Lisako home.

 

The young man is freaked out and gets out of the car, but the friend drives off without him.

 

The friend eventually gets into a car wreck and when he goes to the hospital, he receives a call from a woman named Lisako, but as the friend's memory after the crash isn't all that great, he rejects the call since he doesn't know who that could be.

 

This has an effective, subtle horror, and the realistic interactions between the two guys really sets up the more unsettling parts, sort of hinting at something similar to One Missed Call. What would have happened if he'd taken the call? It does make me wonder.

Red Shadow

Models are doing a screen test for a snack food commercial. One of the models has her face strangely distorted, making her features swirl and shrink in odd ways.

 

This isn't that unsettling and if anything, it's a bit silly and made me laugh.

Gravure Video

A hired cameraman was filming a young model, trying to make a video of her acting like she was in love and filming the first scenes in the park when he noticed she had on a rosary she picked up off the ground.

The cameraman insisted she remove it when they came to the rented studio, and the young model was reluctant, but she did so regardless so she could film her swimsuit shots.

However, as she was filming the swimsuit shots, she began to get strange scarring on her body and it seemed to worsen over time. She acted erratically as well, like she was half-possessed by something strange, and ran away.

The cameraman tried to chase her but couldn't find her, so he came back to the studio, but the model was already there, her back facing him. He turned her to look at her and saw her upper face and chest and even her stomach covered in strange burn-like rash marks that seemed truly horrific. 

The woman was taken to the hospital and recovered days later after the rosary was returned to its owner's family, as the owner had recently died.

This story was a little bit on the tamer side, but it did have some really gruesome shots and decent acting.

Underground

Two cavers are exploring a dark cave when a strange face appears. The strange face is relatively unsettling, especially around the eyes.

There's not much to this story, so there's little more that can be said, as it's more like a creepy YouTube clip. 

The Cursed Box

A director, the director's assistant, and a young model are recording a show together in a creepy abandoned hotel so they could perform the kokkuri game, which is very similar to using the ouija board in western culture.

Exploring the creepy place, they found an upstairs area that was boarded off, and they even removed the boards from a small room at the back of it. There inside the room was a strange display, many papers hung from red string, and it was unsettling enough the young model wanted nothing to do with it, even when the director tried to make her use it as the recording space.

The director gave up and allowed the young model to record using the board to try to summon Kokkuri-san, and the assistant director was operating the board alongside her. The board moved around, telling them Kokkuri-san had no earthly attachments and wanted them to look in the back room upstairs near the back cabinet.

The model was still against the idea of doing what the director was telling her to, but he kept insisting she cut the red string with scissors as she gave in. He rushed her as she searched near the back cabinet, eventually finding a strange doll and a box tied with string. The model is rushed into opening the box, and she freaks out when she finds hair inside it.

Strange situations begin to happen with the model and the assistant director both running off screaming, and the director runs off after the assistant director to check on him, though he's acting strangely disoriented. 

The director heads back inside when the model screams to check on her and finds her in the cabinet choking on the hair from inside of the box and he helps her get it out of her mouth, dragging her out of the room, only to see the doll now wearing a head full of hair, a very stylish wig for a freaky evil little doll to have.

  

There's a bunch of chaos in the aftermath, as the assistant director throws himself out the window and crashes into the director, but they were all trespassing, so none of them seek medical attention.

In the aftermath, the model and the assistant director are both medically institutionalized for mental health reasons, and the director abandoned directing entirely.

This story was a strange mix of unsettling and silly, and it hit just the right balance, especially with how awful the director was being. It really made it frustrating in a way that the director was the one who came out the most unscathed, but at least his career was ruined...

Movie Rating: 4/5