Summer was once the peak season for horror in Japan, part of the local custom of beating the heat with chills from scary stories.
But since the decline of J-horror a decade or so ago, local horror films have become harder to find in theaters, even in August.
Bucking this downward trend is "The Exorcist Nurse," Masafumi Yamada's medical shocker based on a story by Aruji Kuroki. The film features familiar J-horror elements, including its hospital setting, female-centered story and theme of vengeance from beyond the grave, but "exorcist nurse" is a job description that's new to me. It is to the internet as well, though the movie's website claims it derives from "ancient folk beliefs."