Tales of Terror Vol.1 are stories from a tv show that tell tales based on true supernatural encounters. In this first volume, there are 8 short (and I truly mean short) stories that will probably not scare but may get you to feel slightly irritated for sitting through stuff like this. Here we go..
1. Elevator (Takashi Shimizu)
It's late at night and a young woman is dropped off infront of the building to where she lives. She goes in there and waits for the elevator to arrive. When it does and the doors opens, she sees a bunch of really pale-looking people inside on their way down. She decides to not enter. When the elevator comes by again, she enters it and sees the same dead/zombie-looking people through a window in the elevator.
Sorry to spoil things for you, I actually told EVERYTHING that this story has to offer, only thing I didn't reveal were the actual lines. Like you probably can tell, this short story has absolutely nothing to offer. Don't tell me it's art or whatever, it's just not very good. This was a really bad start.
2. The School Excursion (Ryuta Miyake)
A class goes away somewhere and stays at a hotel. A girl from the school walks in to the bathroom and hears mysterious sounds, and later on sees some strange woman.
I really don't know what to add here. The girl sees a strange woman, but then realizes that it was just a dream..or was it?
3. Kengo Nishioka (Norio Tsuruta)
A housewife hears strange sounds from the next room in her house. Apparently it's a ghost who seeks revenge on her husband who's at not home.
No, the husband's not at home so the ghost torments the housewife for a while instead. He says that her husband is responsible for his death, but the housewife claims that her husband is innocent. That's all folk. No but seriously, that's really it.
4. The Visitor (Keisuke Toyoshima)
A little girl hears that someone is knocking on the appartment door to where she lives. She doesn't wanna open, and the knocking turns into banging that keeps increasing. After a while her sister opens the door while the little girl hides in the bathroom. Will she be safe there?
...probably not, but we'll never get to see that because the movie cuts off just when it's about to get exciting. It starts off good though, and if it would've kept on going for more than just 5 minutes it might could've been something. But on the other hand, I'm not really sure about that though.
5. Covering the 100 Tales (Inchiro Nakayama)
A reporter visits some group of people who tells about the way they died. When they ask her, she starts to scream.
Huh?
6. Cassette Tape (Shiro Sano)
A member of a rock band listens to some tape at home and hears a message from another band member. Then he gets a phone call and is told that the other band member recently commited suicide.
I felt that this was the story out of the eight that had the most potential. But it was too short and really went nowhere. Too bad.
7. Spilt Water (Norio Tsuruta)
A mother and her daughter goes out to buy a melon since it's the death anniversery of the husband/father. When walking in some park, they realize that he's still watching over them.
What the hell? This was like a super short drama and I have no idea what was the point of this. At least the other stories tries to have some horror in them, but this one was just totally different and doesn't really fit the whole "terror" concept. It was bad though, so it will always have that in common with the other stories.
8. The Backward Suit (Ryuta Miyake)
A father comes home drunk almost every night and his daughter is getting really sick of the old guy. Not only is the man drunk but he has his suit on backwards as well, and giving her some lame explanation that he walked on some haunted street. She of course does not believe him until one evening when she walks the same street. And once at home, she has her clothes on backwards.
This was more funny than scary, and actually worked well as a super short film. It's far from great, but at least I got something from it when getting nothing from the rest.
Tales of Terror Vol.1 wasn't very good. Now, I'm not Japanese and I didn't grow up hearing ghost stories like this, so maybe if I did I would've liked it more. Biggest problem is that these stories are REALLY short, and it feels like they are over before they have even started. Since you don't know the characters or have any kind of background info at all, it's hard to get scared, or that it's actually somewhat impossible. I got into some stories, but they were all over way too quick. The stories vary around 5 minutes each, and are as simple as they could possibly be. There's no time to build a creepy atmosphere or to have some dialogue that explains more about the different phenomenons etc. They are just way too short and it's over before you know it which really delivers no satisfaction whatsoever.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Tales of Terror from Tokyo 1
MOVIE YEAR: 2005
DIRECTOR: See next the title of each story
WRITING CREDITS: n/a
GENRE: Horror, Supernatural
CAST: Uncredited
COUNTRY: Japan
RUNTIME: 51 min
RATING: 2/10
Tales Of Terror Vol 1 Website/IMDB Click here
Tales Of Terror Vol 1 Trailer Click here
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