10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Half Decent !, April 11, 2006
This review is from: J Horror Anthology: Underworld (DVD)
6 half decent but very short(15 minutes a piece) low-budget J-horror ghost stories. There is nothing here to rave about & there are plenty of better japanese horror films to choose from. So unless you find this in a 3$ bin somewhere i'd recommend passing on this one,but if you have to own everything to do with japanese horror then go nutts!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
GOOD SET OF HORROR TALES, October 20, 2010
This review is from: J Horror Anthology: Underworld (DVD)
J-HORROR ANTHOLOGY: UNDERWORLD
I am guessing you can tell from the title that this is a film kinda like the "Tales from the Darkside" or "Twilight Zone" movies. Those of course being short horror films wrapped into one, well if that is what you thought you would be correct. I have always been a fan of this style and actually wish more films would come out like this. Of course like most of those this is a mixed bag, some better than others but still over all pretty good. My girl made me start the whole thing over when I was watching it the first time. She had just came home from work noticed I was watching it and she decided then and there she was too. Only thing is she was not going to watch it from the middle on, no no no, she was going to press menu and restart it. Oh well.
CHAIN MAIL
The first story was a cool one called "Chain Mail" about a group of girls who bullied another classmate into committing suicide. Two of them cared nothing about what had happened while the other one could not get over it. Of the three that last one would start to get text messages from the dead with a pick of one of the girls on it. These pics would be of that girl dying rather no pleasantly, yikes. It would read something like "I am [description of death] send this to three friends to save me or you will suffer a similar fate". So the girls have this done to them one by one as the dead girl looks for revenge.
LEFT BEHIND IN THE MOUNTAIN
The next one was another fun one about a lonely guy just looking for a girl, we all know his pain. He ends up meeting girls through texting and messaging and such, and finally one agrees to meet him. The girl is snobby and turns her nose up the second she sees him, she basically treats him like he's nothing. So after they go to the top of a mountain over looking the city because he thought she'd like the view, she disses him for the last time. He ends up leaving her there in the middle of the night, but this sets something off in him. Maybe to get revenge for every past girl who dissed him he continues to take every girl he meets up there, only to leave them there at night. Of course this can only last so long, because he may just meet the wrong girl.
TATTOO
This next one is a really interesting one about a girl who just wants to live a self indulging life. I am sure we all know some one like that, so maybe you know this character. Any way one day she comes across this tattoo shop and sees an interesting butterfly tattoo. The tattoo artist gives her the tat and off she goes to live her life, but at what cost. The cost of the tat was not the cost she was going to have to pay.
VIEWFINDER'S MEMORY
In this tale a group of friends make their way to a beach house they haven't visited in years. Of course they are just looking to have fun and lay out on the beach, swim, and surf, whatever. But one of them meets a girl out there and quickly falls in love, love at first sight. All is going well until it is about time for the guys to leave, then it turns out they may actually have a connection.
GUARDIAN ANGEL
Our next tale is about a girl who has lost it all in her life, every one important to her has passed away. At a young age her parents died and she was raised there after by her grandmother. But now that she is grown it seems her grandmother has passed on as well, add in the financial troubles and she is feeling down. So as her life seems to get worse she decides it is time to end it all. The thing is every time she tries to commit suicide accidents happen that just so happen to stop her.
MORTUARY
The final film is a fun one about a medical trainee that has to take the body of a young boy down to the hospital morgue. Now he was there in the operating room and knows that the boy did not make it, but something is wrong it seems. The boy's mother shows up and swears that the kid is alive despite what she is being told. Turns out the boy may agree with her or maybe there is something else happening here.
Each one of the stories are good and none or horrible but like I said some are better than others. Some are cool, some are creepy, and some are just straight good. I am sure reading that you may have an idea of which ones you would like. All of these stories are worth seeing and this film is a nice one to add to any collection if you like this style of horror. I realize this review is more so a synopsis type thing more so than a review but hey, I' am not wanting to give away too much. Just know that I did enjoy this volume and need to re-watch the second. The second one is "J-Horror Anthology: Legends".
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5.0 out of 5 stars
J-Horror anthology with some thoughtfull approaches and twists!, April 7, 2010
This review is from: J Horror Anthology: Underworld (DVD)
I think that i actually liked all the short 15 minute segments, as they did well with this and i actually found it very entertaining, but as "westerner", if you are not actually familiar with J-horror or Japanese horror anthologies, then you will have to get used to the style, as well as the language and subtitling, but the stories in my opinion, did get across what being directed and even effective, given the short time for each feature. I especially liked and thought that the segments of "A view finders memory", and "Chain mail", as well as "Left behind the mountain", were good for this type and i highly recommend these. IF you do not understand the culture behind some of the elements of the society for which these films are made, then you will not like, nor enjoy, and perhaps too, miss out to see that problems exist and are in effect, very important to the Japanese viewers and can relate to. For the price, i think i can honestly recommend to those that like have a short, but thinking types of a culturally based short films, with a scare and some touching moments as well. Just my two cents worth.
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