VOD From The Dead - Ouija Japan (2021)

As someone who has grown up in North America, it’s not always easy to observe American influence on pop culture in other places. Take, for example, Asian cinema. For decades, filmmakers from Italy to Los Angeles have taken inspiration from Asian cinema to influence their own particular style, or simply to remake their stories for Western audiences. When it comes to horror, this often yields a mixed result. While Japan’s RINGU was well translated for American audiences as THE RING, many other Western retellings failed to capture the atmosphere, dread, and terror that is a hallmark of Japanese Horror. What is hard for me as an American to get a grasp on is, how influential is our brand of horror on others? The past few years have ushered in more diverse horror content than ever, thanks in large part to networks like SHUDDER and companies like ARROW VIDEO, but how do North American horror tropes resonate in other places? 2021’s  English / Japanese film OUIJA JAPAN seeks to provide some kind of answer to that question. Will that influence be a positive one or one of the lesser contributions to global horror cinema?

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Karen is an American housewife living in Japan who desperately wants to fit in with her Japanese community, until peer pressure forces her to play the Kokkuri-san (the Japanese Ouija) with the other housewives, unwittingly disrespecting a local deity, who sets them up to fight each other in a deadly game of battle royal. A mysterious app gets installed on their phones to aid them in their battle. It offers the women tools to fight each other, which they buy with credits. But they better be careful with their spending!

This is the deadliest pop-up ad of all time!

HOW IS IT?

Much like me with a bag of Reese's Pumpkins, this film gets messy. OUIJA JAPAN is a frankenstein’s monster of ideas ripped from extremely familiar territory, especially considering this being a Japanese production. The obvious nods to genre-defining films like BATTLE ROYALE are there, albeit with a fresh new techno-terror angle driven by the zeitgeist of in-app purchasing. While what OUIJA JAPAN is trying to achieve is somewhat unique, its execution is sloppy and confusing, not to mention kinda boring.

The premise itself is kind of silly if you say it out loud, as it’s basically Battle Royale with Japanese Housewives. While that thought on its own is worth a laugh, the film takes itself very seriously and doesn’t seem to be aware of just how absurd this situation actually is. Despite having the word OUIJA in the title, there are less than 5 minutes of “ouija” involvement and it’s a MacGuffin to introduce the survival games that await our group of unwilling participants. Speaking of the “game”, I couldn’t tell you what the rules are and how anything works. There was something about using in-app credits to buy weapons, and the more I think about it the more questions I have. I guess this lack of logic in a way does give the film more opportunities to hurl things at you, and that does make things somewhat entertaining as the film reaches its violent conclusion. Sadly, there is not enough along the way to make the film compelling enough to maintain interest, even at a sparse 78 minutes.

One last thing I would be remiss if I didn’t mention is the interesting choice to have the film in both English and Japanese. While it does make sense for some characters, the film eventually takes a more “informal” approach and characters just seem to switch between the two without any rhyme or reason. It’s an odd choice, but not one that is totally out of left field given that Karen is American and doesn’t speak Japanese. Somewhat of a distraction, but that may just be me.

Karens from all parts of the world compete to kill each other.

LAST RITES

OUIJA JAPAN tries to offer a new spin on the “Battle Royale” formula and less on the titular occult board game. Despite some strange moments, the overall package isn’t compelling enough to provide much entertainment.

THE GORY DETAILS

Directed By

MASAYA KATO

Written By

MASAYA KATO

Starring

ARIEL SEKIYA

MIHARU CHIBA

EIGI KODAKA

TRAILER

Where can you watch it?

OUIJA JAPAN is available as of October 1 (that’s NOW) on Amazon Prime Video and on Blu-ray from Leomark Studios and TokyoSHOCK Japan!