‘House of Sayuri’ Movie Review [Fantasia 2024]: Kôji Shiraishi’s Eerie J-Horror Pivots to Lousy Camp

Photo from Fantasia Film Festival

Japanese horror and the paranormal frequently go hand-in-hand. From Ju-On to Ring, ghastly entities with long black hair took over the silver screen, pumping nightmare fuel for a generation of moviegoers. Noroi: The Curse writer/director Kôji Shiraishi brings a blend of horror and comedy to a manga adaptation of Rensuke Oshikiri’s Sayuri, titled House of Sayuri. This popular genre combination is difficult to pull off and this ghost story doesn’t make it look any less so.

The seven-member Kamiki family finally found their dream home. Soon after moving in, the vengeful spirit of a murdered girl named Sayuri terrorizes them. The haunting escalates from odd occurrences to lethal consequences for treading on the property. Eldest son Norio (Ryôka Minamide) and his dementia-ridden grandmother must work together to handle the spirit and reclaim their home before it claims the lives of the entire family.

House of Sayuri opens in the past with a mother begging her reclusive daughter to join the family for dinner, who refuses her pleas with an intimidating reaction. Ten years later, Norio and his family arrive at the same, old house that needs some renovations. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Shiraishi initially approaches these common horror tropes with a serious tone. Sayuri manipulates the television in eerie ways to taunt the family, occasionally letting out a spine-chilling laugh. Imagine a faster-killing Kayako from Ju-On who giggles instead of groans. These deaths are also quite a bit more gruesome.

Norio falls in love with a peculiar girl at his school, who has a sixth sense for the paranormal. She tries to warn him about his new home, although he doesn’t initially believe her. The tone grows lighter with the body count until it’s totally consumed by camp. Norio’s grandmother changes from one archetype to another, who brings about the film’s only chuckle-worthy moments through her gonzo delivery.

House of Sayuri deviates from general tropes in the third act, where it finds a different way for its protagonists to combat its paranormal troubles. The narrative flies off the rails with a jumbled tonal mess it can’t recover from. The sloppy CGI diminishes any sense of danger, taking the camp to a grating level that is not funny or compelling. 

House of Sayuri underwhelms as both a horror and a comedy. Rather than blend the two tones, Shiraishi distinctly splits the genres into two halves that feel like they belong to different movies. There isn’t any atmosphere-building tension and the humor doesn’t land. The use of inverted J-horror tropes is smart, but the execution doesn’t work. 

Rating: 1.5/5

House of Sayuri played at Fantasia 2024 on August 2nd, 2024.