For anyone who remembers the Japanese horror movie boom of the late ’90s and early ’00s, Takashi Shimizu (the man behind Ju‑on), is responsible for some of the most dread‑inducing, skin‑crawling images ever produced, and remains one of the genre’s defining architects. Even before The Mouths begins you know you’re in the hands of someone who understands how to make the mundane uncanny, and while this isn’t quite a full return to peak Shimizu, it’s close enough to feel like a welcome return.
Shimizu has always been good at building horror out of everyday rituals, and with The Mouths he uses that simplicity as a structural playground for a beautifully simple premise – two separate groups of teenagers take a “test of courage” by visiting a cursed tree in an abandoned cemetery. Deep in the countryside the dread around this long‑abandoned area is palpable, and whatever’s lurking in the shadows combined with the countless cicadas screaming overhead creates a weirdly oppressive stillness – something that Shimizu has always good at weaponising.
The first set of teenagers are a bubbly, borderline annoying group whose energy evaporates the moment they reach the tree, while the second are simply a pair who at first appear to be a bully and a victim. The film shifts between accounts, timelines and perspectives to create a twisting narrative that keeps bending and reframing itself to reveal connections and motivations that are more interesting than they first appear, and contain a few surprises even if this isn’t built like a normal mystery. The Mouths isn’t structured as a puzzle, but it is a film that constantly lies to you, and it’s surprisingly satisfying when it reveals how everything links together. The film is spooky and atmospheric, yet as a hardened fan of this sort of thing it didn’t illicit quite the same reaction from me as it might from a more casual viewer, partly because the mystery sometimes overshadows other aspects.
The director hasn’t lost his touch for uncanny movement, unnatural silence, or the sudden intrusion of something wrong into an otherwise mundane space, and there are moments that remind you why his name still carries weight
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Where The Mouths really shines is in the hauntings that ripple outward from the cursed tree, which leads to several genuinely skin‑crawling moments as the teenagers are stalked by something across their college campus. The director hasn’t lost his touch for uncanny movement, unnatural silence, or the sudden intrusion of something wrong into an otherwise mundane space, and there are moments that remind you why his name still carries weight. The dinner‑table sequence, for example, is vintage Shimizu – grotesque, uncanny, and deeply uncomfortable in the way only he can manage.
The film adopts a confessional format to build tension through the young ensemble’s excellent performances, with the teenagers in a pitch‑black room and multiple cameras capturing their accounts, their regrets and their fear. It’s an odd device that uses stark, almost theatrical exposition, but Shimizu leans into the artificiality of it, intercutting the taped testimonies with a police officer listening to the recordings and attempting to piece together what happened. This wraparound becomes the film’s weakest element because the officer wants to sell the story to one of Japan’s many supernatural magazines, which makes him feel more like a narrative contrivance or a tool to move pieces around. He doesn’t feel like a character with any dramatic weight so the momentum dips every time the film cuts back to him, and even the ending (clever as it is), doesn’t fully justify how much time we spend with him.
When the true wreckage caused by the tree is revealed (and it truly is a wrecking machine), and the final minute arrives, Shimizu does something I’ve genuinely never seen before – the film asks the viewer a series of questions as it conducts a survey from beyond, asking if The Mouths are the cause of all the trouble. It’s a wildly unique ending that will frustrate some, but it’s the kind of playful swing only a veteran would have the conviction to attempt and reframes the entire film in a way that’s quietly brilliant, and I loved it. There’s also a similarity between this film and the way What We Do in the Shadows maintains its documentary conceit, though here the effect and implications are far starker, and more like Smile 2.
The Mouths arrives at an interesting time for Japanese horror, which is slowly stitching itself back together as many creators in the indie space experiment with new forms of storytelling. It’s a reminder that the genre is broad and still has life in it, and seeing an old master return to it and still be within touching distance of his best is heartening. Others may not be as convinced by the film, but personally I’ll watch every Japanese curse horror that comes my way as it’s the kind of that’s very much up my alley.
THE MOUTHS HAD ITS NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE AT FANTASIA 2026
ROB’S ARCHIVE – THE MOUTHS
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