[Film Review] Ox Head Village (2022)

Warning: This review contains spoilers!

Since terrifying audiences with the original Ju-On series, nothing has ever really measured up to such a debut.

Takashi Shimizu’s American Ju-On with The Grudge was one of the better remakes of Asian horror in the early 2000s due to his presence at the helm, and I consider 2005’s Reincarnation to be a bit of a hidden gem, but delivery on scares since has been low since. Still, he is one of the more recognisable names of J-horror in the West, and the prospect of a trilogy of films from him based on popular urban legends was something that caught the attention of horror fans, myself included. Unfortunately the first two films Howling Village and Suicide Forest Village ended up being a little muddled, despite starting out promisingly. The last, Ox Head Village, streaming now exclusively on Scream Box, is the best of the trilogy but falls a little short of the promise of its set-up.

Kanon is an average girl living her life when one day her friend Ren shows her a video of three girls who went into a supposedly haunted location, one of whom went missing. The missing girl looks exactly like Kanon, prompting the pair to travel to the area to find out what her connection is to this doppelganger, and what is the dark history connecting Kanon to the ox-headed god.

Whilst the three films in Shimizu’s Haunted Village trilogy are not directly related, it feels as though the same formula has been applied to all of them in terms of the basic plot structure. First, have a doomed girl named Akina stream her fatal supernatural experience, then introduce a plot somewhat connected to the urban legend of the title, some nice and gory deaths as our characters uncover the truth connected to some dark family secret, then a third act of chaos courtesy of monster CGI before ending on a final “it’s over……or is it???” Cue credits and mild confusion any time you try to think about anything you just saw too closely. Shimizu has in essence written and directed the same movie three times. As such, all three films share a lot of the same flaws, the most notable being that they’re all too long for what they are. There are some halfway decent 90 minute horrors buried in these near 2 hour films but runtimes could be used more effectively to ensure intrigue and tension are sustained. 

The films also could take fuller advantage of their urban legend premises and use them as r jumping off points. To give an example, the Western equivalent would be like if there was a movie called Bloody Mary and t Bloody Mary is played in the first scene  but the rest of the plot is about how the house where they played it is haunted. At the beginning of Ox Head Village two characters discuss the original Ox Head legend, of a story that is so scary anyone who hears it is stricken by madness and death soon after. This could have been a really interesting premise for a horror film, but this is overlooked and instead.. nods to and elements from these well-known urban legends are added to make it more appealing. 

Speaking more specifically on Ox Head Village, it is the best in the trilogy by virtue of being the most straightforward and is very watchable. However, it jumps about a lot narratively and at times there is a  lack of urgency killing any potential momentum along with too much exposition. It turns out that the missing girl is Shion, Kanon’s forgotten twin sister, and what is happening to them is the result of a tradition of the village their family is originally from practising a tradition of sacrificing one of any twins born to the local god and the ghostly anger of a former sacrifice, a plot point which seems to have been partially lifted from the video game Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly, complete with repeated butterfly imagery.

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Their father took Kanon away for her safety, although it is never addressed why Shion and the girls’ mother didn’t go too and Kanon never asks. It seems like a lot of things could have been avoided if Shion didn’t still live in that area and happen to be in the location of the former village with friends and also happen to also be wearing a cow mask as in the traditions of the sacrifice. At times, the film  pushes suspension of disbelief and unfortunately, the most entertaining characters die, taking any personality from the film with them. The movie does look beautiful though, with some creative and sweeping scenery shots as well as some that along with the score highlight what moments of mood the movie has quite nicely. There are some decent scares as well, both a mixture of in your face and a more subtle corner of the frame type. I will always be a fan of a multitude of ghost hands reaching out from around corners and gaps. Technically speaking the film is great, but story and atmosphere are everything with a film like this and this is lacking a little here. 

Ox Head Village is a case of the old “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed”, and to sound even more like a schoolteacher at parent’s night I wouldn’t be so harsh if I didn’t know that Takashi Shimizu was capable of so much better.

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