Koji Shiraishi is one of the most prolific directors currently working, yet beyond cult hits like Noroi, Occult, and his ongoing series Senritsu Kaiki File, his work seems to have gone under the radar for those not intimate with Japanese horror. House of Sayuri has the potential to reach a wider audience (assuming it gets decent distribution), as he moves away from the found footage subgenre that he’s best known for, to tell a tale of a haunted house and a troubled family.
Co-written with Mari Asato (a writer and director in her own right whose work includes an entry in the Ju-On series), and adapted from Rensuke Oshikiri’s original manga, Sayuri follows a large family moving to a new home – with a particular focus on the oldest son, Norio Kamiki. The family are already unsettled upon arriving as the patriarch Akio shows off about their “dream home”, whilst commenting on the family’s worries about how they would sustain themselves without him. With his three children, his wife, and his own parents dependant on him, the film introduces an undercurrent of dread before anything supernatural appears.
Blending real-world problems with supernatural horrors is Shiraishi’s bread-and-butter, so it’s no surprise that this is where the film is at its most effective. The opening flashback suggests a horrible event ten years prior that, as nosy neighbour Oura tells Norio, means that “people who live here, they always move out quickly”. Anyone familiar with Shiraishi knows he operates on multiple levels of horror, with this quiet unease being complemented by overtly unsubtle scares, including jump scares and ghostly figures creeping around the house, randomly scaring family members. Shiraishi also gets good mileage out of repetitions and glitches that clue in characters that something is wrong – though this realisation isn’t always enough to protect them from tragic fates.
After this promising set-up, the film shifts into a wildly different tone involving training montages and ghost fighting. Such a switch-up isn’t unusual for Shiraishi, who often balances outlandish comedy with moody scares, but here he also adds a sincere narrative based on real world horrors that upsets the balance. This plotline is based on the ghost’s motivations (which I won’t spoil here), but it’s not from the manga, and was added in by Shiraishi for the film. While understandable in adding more depth to the ghost’s story, it’s tonally jarring – mishandling the very sensitive subject matter it deals with and so ending the film with a bad taste in the mouth.
It’s a shame because overall there’s plenty to enjoy on a superficial level, with committed performances and memorable set pieces. Shiraishi is an inventive enough filmmaker to always produce something interesting, even when it’s a mixed bag like this. If nothing else, it’s never boring – even when it is frustratingly baffling, and perhaps the best summation of the film is in the final monstrous form of the ghost, complete with CGI tentacles – an unnerving concept that’s disappointingly executed.
House of Sayuri had its North American Premiere at Fantasia Fest 2024
