Never After Dark

Never After Dark

A terrifying horror about secrets that rise from the grave 

Airi has been a medium for as long as she can remember. She travels across Japan, helping lost souls cross over and freeing frightened people from the spirits that haunt them. Her latest job seems routine. A woman wants Airi to get rid of a ghost haunting her property. Airi takes on the challenge and arrives at a mansion that was once a hotel. But once she gets there, nothing goes quite as it should. This entity does not behave like other ghosts, and Airi finds herself breaking her cardinal rule more and more often: never work after dark.

Director Dave Boyle does not try to reinvent Japanese horror with “Never After Dark.” And thank goodness for that. He understands perfectly well that in J-horror, fear does not jump out from around a corner with a sinister howl. It waits. First, it lulls you into a false sense of security. In an empty room, behind a half-closed door, in a neighbor’s uncertain gaze, in a faltering phone connection, in the sound of a clock’s hands ticking, showing the right time only when they feel like it. Boyle draws on the classic elements of the genre with masterful precision, then turns them upside down. “Never After Dark” is bone-chilling without resorting to cheap tricks. It appeals to the audience’s imagination and trusts it to do the rest. This is intelligent horror that reminds us that ghosts and people can be equally terrifying. A film that does not shy away from violence and gore, but more often relies on fear and unease.

The film’s greatest asset is the remarkable Moeka Hoshi, well known to Western audiences from the series “Shōgun.” Hoshi brings her sensitivity and melancholy to Airi, creating a character who is strong yet fragile, fearless yet terrified. Horror cinema needs characters like this, and this year, horror certainly needed “Never After Dark.”