Introduction

The world of cinema is full of narratives based on or dealing with urban legends. It is thus not surprising that the presence of such scary stories within the Japanese societal field gets reflected in Japan’s cinematic output. 

The urban legend of Kisaragi Station (2022) started when, in 2004, a woman named Hasumi informed netizens on the internet message board 2channel that she arrived at a strange empty train station called Kisaragi station and offered the audience real-time updates on her situation. The mystery concerning the location of the station and the fate of the woman, who disappeared after sharing her message caused a huge online discussion and allowed the mysterious online events to transform into a modern urban legend.

Review

One afternoon, ethnology student Haruna Tsutsumi (Yuri Tsunematsu), who is currently gathering information for her graduation thesis on ‘mysterious disappearances’, visits Sumiko Hayama (Eriko Sato) to conduct an interview about the horrifying otherworldly experience she had in the past.

Sumiko tells her interviewer about Kisaragi station, the people who were with her, and the bloody ordeal she survived. The little time she spends in that strange bloodthirsty place, she tells Haruna, translated in a seven-year absence from the mundane societal field – time flows differently there. Sumiko informs Haruna that any later attempt to return to that mysterious station to find Miyazaki (Miyu Honda), the high-school girl who was left behind, ended in failure. Yet, can Haruna uncover what Sumiko did to end up in that horrible mysterious space?  

Kisaragi Station could easily have been uninspiring trash – a simple rehashed mix of J-horror tropes, but Takeshi Miyamoto and Jirô Nagae succeed in delivering a narrative structure that surprises and satisfies the spectator. While the film starts off as a straightforward horror experience – a narrative playing with the elements of disorientation and otherworldly bloodthirsty hunger to make the spectator feel ill-at-ease – Kisaragi Station ultimately transforms into a horrifying mystery narrative. The repetition that defines the otherworldly space around the station – the people, their signifiers, and acts are all the same – might deflate the spectator’s disorientation in the second half, the very fact that the spectator, just like Haruna, can orient himself in this space creates an unheimlich and puzzling effect. Why is this space marked by repetition? What does this structural repetition mean for the subjects stuck within this space? And can Haruna, the only subject who can ripple this repetition with her acts and signifiers, change the outcome of the events are about the happen again in this strange, mystifying space?

Jirô Nagae crafted a composition that succeeds both in emphasizing the mundane as well as give certain visual elements (e.g. the white house) their subtle ominous quality. Yet, the vague sense of omens disturbing the mundane societal field is not so much because of Nagae’s thoughtful use of static long takes, the darkish colour-design – the presence of strong shadows, and the forlorn and threatening musical decorations, but due to the spectator’s expectations. Nagae fully understands that, as the spectator anticipates a horror narrative, any kind of subtle modulation of the visual field will feel unheimlich to the spectator and fuel his sense of feeling ill at ease (Cine-note 1).    

Nagae also fluidly integrates other visual decorations into his composition. For example, to bring Hayama’s disorienting experience to life he utilizes colour-effects and pov-shots (Colour-note 1). The former allows the mundane imagery (e.g. of a train, of Kisaragi station) to attain its otherworldly flavour and the latter, by melting the gaze of the spectator with Hayama’s together, allows the spectator to experience the sense of disorientation and tension more directly.    

The visual effects, while not that convincing, are serviceable. While the reliance on these low-budget computerized effects could have easily derailed the narrative. turning the moments of bloody horror into unbelievably surges of silliness, Nagae ensures, by crafting an engaging atmosphere with his visuals and by directing his cast well, that Kisaragi Station never strays into the field of comedy.   

Kisaragi Station could easily have been a failure – a sour-tasting hotchpotch of horror tropes,  but thanks to a good narrative structure and pleasant performance this low-budget horror film succeeds in engaging and satisfying the spectator. While Nagae’s film is far from groundbreaking material that breathes new life in the ailing genre, it nevertheless delivers proof that the genre is not death yet.  

Notes

Cine-note 1: The impact of the spectator’s expectation cannot be understated. While the director surely anticipated the impact of many visual elements (e.g. the house), the anticipation of the spectator also leeches on visual elements that were not intended to ripple the mundane societal space.   

Colour-note 1: The spectator will notice that, when Haruna enters the space around Kisaragi station, Nagae does not utilize any kind of colour-effects to highlight the otherworldly nature of the place. The need to use such decorative element disappears because the spectator already understands that this space is beyond the mundane societal field.

However, the lack of colour-effects to echo the otherworldly fabric of the space can also be since the second half is not a visualization of a verbalized memory, but an experience in the hic et nunc.