This film essentially begins with a YouTube blogger by the name of "Akina" (Rinka Otani) recording herself as she enters a thick forest known for the number of people who venture inside to commit suicide. While she is recording, strange things begin to happen, and her screams are the last things anyone hears. The scene then shifts to a teenage girl named "Hibiki Amasawa" (Anna Yamada) watching the video at home and becoming quite disturbed by it. Not long afterward, while helping some friends move into a new apartment, a strange box is found under the house which terrifies Hibiki--and immediately afterward the people around her begin to die in horrific ways. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that I was extremely impressed with this movie--for the first hour or so. Unfortunately, the plot began to drag to such a degree that I almost felt like entering this deadly forest myself. It was almost as if the director (Takashi Shimizu) decided to abandon any pretense of a plot and simply fill in the remaining minutes with special effects instead. That being said, while I don't consider this film to be that bad necessarily, I do consider it to be a missed opportunity, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

This is about a cursed box that is linked to Japan's suicide forest.

This was more slow burning than I expected it to be. It took a while for things to get going and it made things feel a bit disjointed at first. To be honest though, there were webpages that were displayed and may have provided more context to the story had I been able to read them. The subtitles I had were decent but didn't cover webpage dialogue and I may have missed a few things.

The overall story wasn't bad and the acting was good. The horror aspects were sparse throughout most of the film but when we finally got there, there were some unnerving and creepy moments that were well done.

I'll probably watch it again just to see if I can pick up on what I may have missed but I don't have a problem recommending it for a creepy watch.

The second installment in the "Horror Village" series by Takashi Shimizu, following "Howling Village." Takashi channeled his Ju-On era by creating a frightening lore surrounding Japan's infamous suicide forest. The out-of-the-box innovative death scenes and a brilliant cast of prettiest girls proved J-horror still got the originality and aesthetics.