Grave Halloween (2013)

Directed by Steven R. Monroe

More than a decade after she’s sent away from her home country of Japan and adopted, Maiko takes a trip out to the famous Aokigahara Forest, also known as the Suicide Forest for you non-weebs, to try to find the site where her mother killed herself, and bring her spirit to rest. Joining her is her cadre of friends from the Yamanashi International University, who are there so this story explicitly set in Japan and concerning Japanese spiritual customs can have a mostly white cast, that all join Maiko so they can turn her personal tragic story into a good grade for a video project they’re making for class. What’s the project about? Why would the professor accept this given that filming in the Suicide Forest is illegal? Why would Maiko agree to put her personal trauma on display for this video? Here’s an answer for you; so the movie could happen. Anyway, it’s very important for Maiko to complete a segaki, which is a really real Buddhist ritual that calms the restless dead, and Maiko is determined to finish it this year, as coincidentally the ritual takes place on Halloween night this year.

Unless you’ve already googled this and spoiled the surprise, which anyone can do and could have done at the time, I bet you’re wondering if the annual segaki ritual fell on October 31st that year. The answer is no. Interestingly, the segaki ritual can be performed at any time during the year, but there is a special annual ritual held, typically between the end of July and the beginning of September. There is no connection whatsoever between this and Halloween, and Halloween is mentioned maybe once in this movie, just so they could put it in the title and have this movie come up when well meaning lovers of Halloween horror type in ‘Halloween’ on a streaming site. It is a blatant lie told by desperate filmmakers to try to dishonestly get views on a movie no one would want to watch for any other reason. It’s downright disrespectful, which is ironic given that the plot of the movie is about disrespecting the dead in the Suicide Forest.

But I can understand why they would want to trick people, because Grave Halloween has nothing else going for it except ripping off better horror movies. They’re lost in the creepy shifting woods so it’s like the Blair Witch Project but shittier. There’s invisible monsters and vine-like things attacking you, so it’s like the Evil Dead but shittier. There’s a spooky mystery involving a creepy long haired ghost so it’s like a  lot of Japanese horror movies but shittier. The only thing Grave Halloween has going for it is that it is prime riffing material, the kind of movie that you can heckle and throw beer bottles at the screen (preferably if you’re projecting it on a wall) and feel content in the knowledge that you didn’t make this movie. To be fair, I will say two positive things about Grave Halloween. The ending plot twist is a good idea but not executed properly, and also the actors are all trying their best but can’t get past the awful lines they’re forced to read. These people all deserved better than Grave Halloween.