The poster and trailer for director Takashi Shimizu's upcoming horror film Howling Village say the movie is "From the writer and director of The Grudge and The Grudge 2", which is true – but it would have been even better if they said "From the creator of the Grudge franchise", because not only did Shimizu write and direct the Japanese films Ju-on: The Grudge and Ju-on: The Grudge 2, he also made the preceding films Ju-on: The Curse and Ju-on: The Curse 2, made short films that set up the franchise before that, and would go on to direct (but not write) the American remake The Grudge and its follow-up, The Grudge 2. But instead of looking back at Shimizu's Grudges, today we're meant to be looking forward to Howling Village, which Dread will be giving a theatrical release on August 13th, followed by an On Demand release on August 17th and a Blu-ray release on September 14th.
The trailer for Howling Village is embedded above, and the poster can be seen below.
When I first saw the title of this movie, I was hoping it meant that Shimizu would be digging into some werewolf action. But instead, he's bringing some more ghosts to the screen with this one. Inspired by a Japanese urban legend, Howling Village was written by Shimizu and Daisuke Hosaka. It has the following synopsis:
After her brother goes missing, Kanade, a young psychologist visits his last known location, an infamous haunted and cursed site known as ‘Howling Village’ to investigate his disappearance. Her investigation reveals that the village’s mysteries are connected to her family and works to uncover her family’s dark history.
Ayaka Miyoshi, Ryota Bando, Megumi Okina, and Renji Ishibashi star.
I'd be more interested if there were furry monsters in the trailer instead of pale spirits, but I'll check out Howling Village at some point.
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