The Black House (1999)

"This human being has no heart."

I'm stick with my mindset-that this is gonna be a haunted house, probably like Kayako from Ju-on because the poster has that vibe.

The first act was passed by introducing the MC, Wakatsuki fascinatingly well, but I thought a lot why was it leaning to the comedy while the main character was described as a meek person and feel so far from horror.
The second act started to be serious, Wakatsuki personality used by main villain as a trigger for conflict and everything is about to go down; sometimes there are still funny moments occasionally, also at this point I realize that the editing and cinematography were so great, give this film its own taste.
The third act is where everything is going down, conflict leads to its peak, and the true horror face of this film shows up. Unnerving, thrilling, spine-chilling and there's no Kayako but this film main villain were so dang terrifying, and the Wakatsuki final battle versus the main villain was so FIRE, ended satisfyingly.

I still don't get it why Wakatsuki think the main villain was a possible next victim of the insurance fraud, like Wakatsuki met the main villain dead ass face for few times, those expresion and the way it talk should have given him red flag, so I kinda think the essays seems forced for the sake of Wakatsuki who is a meek, imo.

The actors performance deserves praises, even though sometimes they're seems over the top but overall they did well on their respective role, especially the main villain, never thought could be that scary.

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I gave up on this movie 45 minutes in before i started to just screen jump.

Personally, this wasn't horror in any way. Thriller, possibly. Mystery, sure. But all in all once it showed the kids death, I wanted to stop watching. The parents remind me of crackheads so i wouldn't put it past them to have "helped" him "commit suicide" to get the insurance money.

This was pretty much all this movie was. People killing themselves or others for insurance money.

And not going to lie, I have zero ideas who his gf/lover is. I swear it's like i blinked and suddenly she was there. Don't remember her name or where she came from.
I don't actually remember any of the characters names. I don't care to. That's how bad this movie was.

For a movie made in 99, i expected better. :/

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Horrible adaptation

I'm seeing that this is not a popular movie, and there is a reason for it, but if someone has watched it and left with questions I hope my comment helps.
I've read the original novel which was a masterpiece, and this adaptation is just horrible. Let's do a comparison.
In the original story, Wakatsuki has some mental issues, due to his older brother's suicide committed at a young age. He has been blaming himself since it happened, and he sees the same nightmare about a spider holding his brother hostage and chasing him.
This issue is the reason for telling the lady about considering suicide once more, and this is the reason he couldn't get his thing stand up. None of these things were explained.
He has been with his girlfriend, Megumi since university in the novel, and they just randomly place her in the movie.
The lack of explanation is one of the biggest issues of this adaptation.
Another big issue was the mood-setting, which was terrible. The background music was really bad, destroying the mood. The color choices for Sachiko's clothing were terrible. They did a bad job of portraying Sachiko's personality.
Bowling was never once mentioned in the novel, however, they decided to add it, and it was so meaningless and again, destroying the mood. I'd rather not talk about the random swimming scenes.
And the unreasonable erotic scenes especially in the ending it was ridiculous. (There were none in the novel luckily)
The original story wanted to emphasize the idea of Japanese society sinking so deep that they willingly commit various crimes for money. The novel also questioned the incompetence of the Japanese police (which was not shown here).
The director went to a classic horror movie rather than grabbing the meaning of the book. Kuroi Ie by Kishi Yuusuke was one of my best reads, and my hand was shaking in fear while reading some scenes, but this adaptation is nothing more than a huge disappointment.

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