This movie has its moments, but maybe not enough of them to justify your time.
The Amazon Prime synopsis (fashion models doing a photo shoot in an abandoned school who are beset by supernatural forces) made me think that this was actually another, better known Japanese horror film reviewed favorably in "DVD Delirium 2", but 5 minutes into it, I realized that it was a different movie altogether.
But that's OK.
The movie has a very small cast - three young schoolgirls, a female chaperone, a male photographer, and two male representatives of the fashion photography industry (oh, and a walk-on role by a yellow journalist in the prologue and epilogue). All the actors are decent-to-pretty good, even the girls. (I was lucky to see this the Japanese language version with subtitles, so their performances weren't compromised by a bad or indifferent dub.) But the characters are cardboard, so it's hard to care a lot about their fates, and the lack of outside interaction makes for a fairly sterile and unexciting environment.
On second thought, that might be what the director was trying for - a sterile, airless, self-contained environment that allows nothing in or out- not unlike a mirror. There's certainly enough professionalism on display that I wouldn't discredit the notion that this extra depth was intended as part of the movie's "feel". But it didn't make for a better movie for whatever reasons.
The driving motor for the screenplay is that one of the young girls makes an angry wish into a pair of mirrors and somehow unleashes a curse that brings the group's doppelgangers to life, and each doppelganger is a nemesis that proceeds to kill its real life counterpart.
This isn't a bad idea, it just isn't very fresh; the set up is kind of flat and the execution is just OK. It lets the director do some of the standard "malevolent, inexplicable, and unstoppable girl ghost with jump cuts and crawling" tropes that the Japanese do so well (which makes sense, since this director later did the originals of "The Grudge", "The Ring", etc). If you like that sort of thing, you'll get a fair amount of it here. That might be all you want, and if so, go to it; you'll be happy.
The movie is quite short, barely more than an hour, and manages several creepy moments on what appears to be a very small budget (most of the special effects are effective, but not especially impressive.) So I say...Not bad. 6 (just barely) out of 10.
The Amazon Prime synopsis (fashion models doing a photo shoot in an abandoned school who are beset by supernatural forces) made me think that this was actually another, better known Japanese horror film reviewed favorably in "DVD Delirium 2", but 5 minutes into it, I realized that it was a different movie altogether.
But that's OK.
The movie has a very small cast - three young schoolgirls, a female chaperone, a male photographer, and two male representatives of the fashion photography industry (oh, and a walk-on role by a yellow journalist in the prologue and epilogue). All the actors are decent-to-pretty good, even the girls. (I was lucky to see this the Japanese language version with subtitles, so their performances weren't compromised by a bad or indifferent dub.) But the characters are cardboard, so it's hard to care a lot about their fates, and the lack of outside interaction makes for a fairly sterile and unexciting environment.
On second thought, that might be what the director was trying for - a sterile, airless, self-contained environment that allows nothing in or out- not unlike a mirror. There's certainly enough professionalism on display that I wouldn't discredit the notion that this extra depth was intended as part of the movie's "feel". But it didn't make for a better movie for whatever reasons.
The driving motor for the screenplay is that one of the young girls makes an angry wish into a pair of mirrors and somehow unleashes a curse that brings the group's doppelgangers to life, and each doppelganger is a nemesis that proceeds to kill its real life counterpart.
This isn't a bad idea, it just isn't very fresh; the set up is kind of flat and the execution is just OK. It lets the director do some of the standard "malevolent, inexplicable, and unstoppable girl ghost with jump cuts and crawling" tropes that the Japanese do so well (which makes sense, since this director later did the originals of "The Grudge", "The Ring", etc). If you like that sort of thing, you'll get a fair amount of it here. That might be all you want, and if so, go to it; you'll be happy.
The movie is quite short, barely more than an hour, and manages several creepy moments on what appears to be a very small budget (most of the special effects are effective, but not especially impressive.) So I say...Not bad. 6 (just barely) out of 10.
