By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Starring Kotone Furukawa, Kôya Matsudai and Yoshiko Inuyama
Directed by Yûta Shimotsu
Written by Rumi Kakuta
Kadokawa
Horror loves to uphold an adage. “Better safe than sorry” and “Curiosity killed the cat” are two that can be found in dozens of horror films across our beloved genre’s long, dark history. Yûta Shimotsu’s BEST WISHES TO ALL (sometimes translated as Best Regards to All, and executive-produced by Ju-On/The Grudge guru Takashi Shimizu) tackles the old saying “You can never go home again,” taking it in unexpected directions.
In the film, which had its New England premiere at last month’s Boston Underground Film Festival, Kotone Furukawa plays a young woman who takes a short break from nursing school to return to her grandparents’ home, reconnect and relax. She arrives a few days before her parents and younger brother are expected and gets in some quality time with her affectionate grandpa and grandma. Though she has countless happy memories of home and family that we see through flashbacks, something seems off during this visit.
This oddness hits the granddaughter via multiple experiences in the small town. There is something off about the townsfolk, many of whom she has known her whole life. On top of that, her grandparents are acting strange, staring at her and asking direct and weighty questions that are out of character. But perhaps the most tangible and unsettling factor is the strange noises coming from the locked room on the second floor of the family house.
BEST WISHES TO ALL, which Shimotsu expanded from her previous short of the same title, has quite a lot going for it. The eerie premise lends itself to plenty of opportunities for tension and suspense as the mystery of the family secrets unfurls. And the film does a decent job of creating that heavy atmosphere as the granddaughter arrives in the first act. Furukawa’s performance is another major strength, and she carries much of the ambience and fear on her shoulders alone throughout the film.
However, even with these strong elements, BEST WISHES TO ALL crumbles. Without venturing into spoiler territory, suffice it to say that the overall biggest issue is that the movie does not play to its aforementioned strengths. Its underlying premise is inventive and legitimately terrifying, but rather than fully pursue the larger existential crises the concept poses, it decides instead to showcase a few unrelated physical manifestations of horror. Assorted bloody eyes and noses are nothing compared to the pitch-black world-building the film starts to introduce, before shying away and going for the obvious, surface-deep scares. The fact that there are great ideas and frightening ideologies here that go unrealized makes BEST WISHES TO ALL a frustrating exercise. Think of it as if Martyrs turned into straight torture porn in the third act instead of than sticking the landing into mortal and moral depravity. How disheartening that would be!
With its few highlights, BEST WISHES TO ALL is by no means a complete waste of time. As our parents might say, “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”
