Review: Howling Village (2019)

With the amount of times I kept seeing Howling Village pop up in various horror news outlets, and its slots in various film festivals, I was really interested in the movie and made a point to watch it when it was released in the US on VOD as opposed to waiting till it was on Blu-Ray or later on in the year when I’m not spending most of my attention on Korean horror. Written and directed by Takashi Shimzu (Ju-On), Howling Village follows psychiatrist Kanae who’s brother goes missing after events that happened while visiting the Haunted Village with his girlfriend, and her journey to uncover the mysteries of the village and it’s ties to her family. In theory, it sounds like everything I would want in a movie. Mysteries, ghosts, family secrets, and creepiness. The movie, however, didn’t quite live up to it.

While the film started off relatively quickly, after about the first third it felt draggy and bogged down in the pursuit of the truth behind the Howling Village and their family’s relation to it. There was a lot of time spent on this, and very little scares were part of this. If you are not a lover of slow burns, this movie will not be your cup of tea. I was intrigued by the mysteries in the beginning, but it failed to live up to what I assumed it would be. The reveals were a bit underwhelming and confusing. Even at the end during the main reveal, much of the focus was trying to figure out what was going on and why the pieces we got along the way come to this. This resulted in a lot of the creepy factors being overshadowed by trying to keep up with what was going on.

The haunted village and tunnel in the movie are based on true legends, as Takashi stated in this Disappointment Media interview:

“The producer approached [me] about some strange things that had happened in this Inunaki Tunnel and what may have happened in the tunnel, a lot of it has been taken up on the internet, and everybody has chimed in with their own version and their own ideas. And basically, [I] took all of that and started to put it together into a script.”

I’m not familiar with the legend, and while not much information is available, I did find several articles about some of the lore behind it. The tunnel is located in Miyawaka town in the Fukuoka Prefecture and is mostly famous for the amount of murders that have occurred in or near. The tunnel is currently sealed because of this. The YouTube channel Kowabana Japan has a couple of videos with a brief history of the area, including the main murder that happened that has cursed the area. I suggest checking out the video (found here). While it doesn’t really tie to the movie, it is interesting to know a little more about the area and why it is a known place for people in that area.

Although Howling Village did not live up to the hype for me, I did enjoy some parts. I thought Ayaka Miyoshi was great in her main role, and her scenes with the boy she was taking care of were some of my favorite parts. I would have loved a bit more with them, and more with the spirits he could see. I would recommend this to anyone who’s into jhorror or a fan of Takashi’s work, but wouldn’t drop things to make room for it. Howling Village is currently on VOD in a number of places (I watched it on YouTube) and will be released on Blu-Ray September 14th.

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