Talk of a J-horror renaissance is overstated, but the past few years have brought a number of films offering novel approaches to the genre, with nary a vengeful wraith in sight. Ryota Kondo¡¯s ¡°Missing Child Videotape¡± (2025), Yuta Shimotsu¡¯s ¡°Best Wishes to All¡± (2024) and Keishi Kondo¡¯s ¡°New Religion¡± (2022) are a few notable examples of the new breed of Japanese horror: smart, stylistically assured and ¡ª to be honest ¡ª not especially scary.
Writer and director Dave Boyle¡¯s ¡°Never After Dark¡± is the latest contender to arrive in theaters after garnering positive buzz (and a few awards) on the festival circuit. It¡¯s a more orthodox affair than the aforementioned movies, but one that gets the essentials right, with a few scenes that are liable to have you watching from between your fingers.
Boyle, an American filmmaker who splits his time between Japan and the U.S., pulls off the difficult trick of working within genre conventions while making them feel fresh. It all begins with the film¡¯s protagonist, Airi (Moeka Hoshi), a wandering medium with a wonky hairdo and a dead sister for a sidekick, who seems more at ease among phantoms than with ordinary people.
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