Horror Movie Review: Tokyo Haunting: The Curse of the Yokai Ghost (2010)

Tokyo Haunting: The Curse of the Yokai Ghost aka Paranormal Effect is a 2010 Paranormal Activity rip-off that utilises aspects of Japanese folklore to try and be different. Some of which works, most of which doesn’t, but regardless of what does and doesn’t, what we have here is a bland ghostly-goings-on tale with lacklustre scares to break up the monotony of the uninteresting characters.

Directors Ryuichi Asano and Teruo Ito do try to give it some life, mainly by revealing interesting folklore and beliefs, but struggle to turn all other aspects of Hideo Sakamoto’s story into something watchable.

Reiko (Mirei Yamagata) is excited to visit her native Japan with her American boyfriend Darren (Darren McIntyre) as she wants him to experience the richness and history of her culture. Which sure makes it a shame that he’s wholly uninterested in anything but the tourist stuff, openly mocks the historical side of Japan, and won’t stop filming everything, regardless of how disrespectful it is. He is insufferable, and while Reiko is disappointed in his antics, she doesn’t get too upset until he decides to go into a forbidden cave, which, according to local beliefs, is a holy place for Shinto gods.

That the scenes following this aren’t based around him profusely apologising to her and Japan in general, might be the most unbelievable thing about this film. Instead, he just continues to tease her about being upset with his behaviour, until strange things start to happen around the place they are staying. Strange things that they are able to capture on camera, luckily.

It seems as though Reiko wasn’t the only one upset by Darren’s intrusion and it followed them home.

It’s about this stage of the film that most will begin to switch off. Unfortunately, all the interesting folklore elements are dropped in favour of Paranormal Activity style ‘bump in the night’ scenes that are (somehow) less scary than even later Paranormal Activity scares.

You’ve seen it all before. She gets up in the night, sleep-walks and stands around menacingly, not remembering a thing the next day. The footage becomes distorted. Is that a face? Why does that corner look darker than any other part of the room? What is in the bathtub? Why is this entity so insistent about being on camera and why won’t Darren turn the damn thing off?

It’s so familiar, it’s embarrassing, even if it is wearing a different cultural skin. Then, with around 20-30 minutes left, the big event that everyone watching will be waiting for, happens. It signifies a tone shift and different direction that moves it back to more folklore-based stuff, but not for the better. The film slowly grinds to a halt leading to an ending that is so forgettable, you’ll have to watch it twice to let it sink in.

Whatever the name you watch it under, be it Tokyo Haunting: The Curse of the Yokai Ghost or Paranormal Effect, just know all you’re getting is a lazy Paranormal Activity rip-off that doesn’t manage to do good things with the opportunities it has. Sure, it’s nice not to have the more traditional Japanese ghosts on screen for once, but it’s not like this has any original ideas.