Reiko (Miki Nakatami), an aspiring young writer with writer's block, is
sent to a house in the country by her publisher Kijime to find peace,
quiet and inspiration there. In the beginning it seems to work, but then
Reiko witnesses her neighbour Yoshiaki (Etsushi Toyokawa) carrying
something around that looks like a human body in a plastic bag - which is
not exactly something to calm you down. Reiko investigates, and eventually
she finds out it's a thousand year old mummy found in the nearby swamp
Yoshiaki keeps at his house next door ... not exactly the most quieting
thought either, but at least much better than a fresh corpse.
Somehow, Reiko and Yoshiaki even begin to know and like each other, and
Yoshiaki eventually trusts Reiko enough to bring the mummy over and ask
her to keep it for a few days while some students are over at his place
(actually a science lab). For whatever reason, reiko agrees ... but then
she begins to see the ghost of a woman in her twenties (just like her
actually), who doesn't only scare her shitless but also tries to tell
Reiko something - but Reiko fails to see what.
Soon, Reiko finds out that the ghost she sees is the spirit of another
aspiring writer in her mid twenties, who inhabited the house she lives in
now just before her, who was also sent here by Kijime and who has somehow
just disappeared one day ...
Reiko and Yoshiaki decide to investigate and try to find the girl's
corpse. They are not successful though, but still, at some point, Kijime,
who has obviously murdered the girl, attacks them, and is only apprehended
by the police in the very last minute ...
Now justice is done and everything should be fine ... but Yoshiaki
still feels haunted by the girl, because he at least thinks he killed her
(after Kijime failed to do the job properly) in a confused state of mind
after being alone with the mummy for way too long ... thing is,he isn't
sure if that was even real of just a hallucination ...
REiko is sure he didn't do it, so she encourages him to search the
swamp - which seems to have had something to do with the murder - with
her, just to prove his innocence to himself ... but ultimately, they pull
the corpse of the gilr out of the swamp, while Yoshiaki is accidently
pushed into the swamp, into his watery grave ...
It's not that the film is without it's scary moments - actually it's
full of them, and director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is probably one of the best
horror directors alive anyways, being able to create an eerie atmosphere
and moments of terror out of very very little with the greatest of ease.
What really brings the film down though is its incomprehensible and
overconvoluted story: One is never quite able to catch the connection
between the mummy story and the murder mystery at hand, which is only made
worse when it's revealed that Yoshiaki is prone to hallucinations - which
eventually reaches a point where the film refuses to make sense. That
said, the film is still creepy as hell, it's just not one of Kurosawa's
better ones.
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