Fatal Frame (Japan, 2014)

Michi, a student in a conservative all-girls school, must resolve the mysterious disappearances and deaths of her fellow classmates after they found an intriguing but haunting photo of Aya, the best singer of her class, who apparently is being held locked in her room, physically but not spiritually. A death curse is placed to anyone who sees Aya's photo, which seems to be taken with a "Camera Obscura". Michi, with the help of her photography skills, might stop it before the spirit of Aya takes her life too and the curse continues to spread in- and outside the school.

Here's an interesting one. Fatal Frame is a movie which I've been looking forward to seeing for quite a while now. Mostly because it's based on a very creepy series of horror video games also titled Fatal Frame. Here's the thing, I was never expecting anything more than some cheap thrills and constant jump-scares. Films based on video games seldom amount to anything amazing, but what I got was something completely different.

Fatal Frame is completely void of jump-scares and lame attempts at trying to make the viewer have a heart attack. Instead, it's a much more ambitious film which goes all-in on atmosphere and story. One of the films best aspects are the visuals. The cinematography and photo are just a wonder to behold, and more than once I was taken back at how skillfully shot this film is. One of the reasons for this could be that the director, Mari Asato, studied under two famous horror film makers: scriptwriter Hiroshi Takahashi ("Ring"), and Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Cure"). Seems like that could only lead to great things.

One review I read for Fatal Frame complained that it wasn't scary, and while that is somewhat true, it's a very minor complaint when seeing how this film pretty much nails everything else. It actually reminds me of Kiyoshi Kurosawa in some ways, where the horror rarely gets in your face but is still always present. And to succeed with that is a much harder thing to do than just have a screaming ghost pop out every ten minutes, which literally was what I expected the film to do. So, all in all, Fatal Frame is a film done with extreme care and an unexpectedly more serious take on the source material while also being a beautiful horror story that doesn't insult your intellect. 

Genre: Horror