Tetsuya Nakashima has been filming the darker sides of human nature for more than two decades, the most commercially and critically successful example being his 2010 murder mystery, "Confessions."

So "It Comes," his screen adaptation of Ichi Sawamura's award-winning horror novel, feels like a natural progression, though it's his first venture into the genre.

Typically for Nakashima, a visual and narrative maximalist, the film is horror as relentlessly busy extravaganza, crammed with everything from wordy explanations to a blizzard of visceral shocks.