'Under Your Bed': Sleeping with the enemy
Rare is the child who hasn't lain awake at night, terrified by the monster they imagine is lurking beneath their bed. But in a country where many people grow up sleeping on futons, such fears are perhaps less deeply rooted. That would explain why, ...
'Hyouka': Teen detectives delve into dark territory
Teenage sleuths date back to the days of "The Hardy Boys" and "Nancy Drew," but unlike those literary icons, the high schoolers who set out to solve a mystery in Mari Asato's "Hyouka" do not perform thrilling deeds of detection and derring-do. Based on Honobu ...
Fatal Frame: Mari Asato's uncanny, ghostly dopplegangers
Japanese horror movies have various ways of making you squirm, shiver or watch the screen through your fingers. But sooner or later most scares of the spook-house variety become annoying. How many more times do I want to see a ghostly hand surging from ...
TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film
The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is ...
