In 2025, Shinobu Yaguchi proves that, even with a background in comedy films, it is possible to create a pleasant horror film – Dollhouse (2025). Yet, one year before him, another director attempted the same. Junichi Ishikawa, drama director with some comedy films under his belt – April Fools (2015), Mixed Doubles (2017), Honeko Akabane’s Bodyguards (2024), took on the challenge to bring Uketsu’s popular novel Henna Ie (2021) alive on the silver screen. Sadly, in contrast to Yaguchi, he could not deliver. So, what went wrong?
A Strange House introduces the spectator to Amemiya (Shotaro Mamiya), a ‘occult’ youtuber whose channel Rainman has been in a slump. Yanaoka (DJ Matsunaka), Amamiya’s manager, stimulates him to find better material, but suddenly shifts the talk to marriage, family and housing. Yanaoka takes out the floor plan of the home he and his wife are thinking of buying. He tells Amamiya that, while he thinks the house is perfect, his wife feels iffy about the lay-out – the existence of non-nonsensical rectangular space between the kitchen and the living room creeps her out.
As Amemiya needs exciting stuff for his channel, he immediately sets out to investigate the mystery of that closed-off space. At the request of his manager, he calls in the help of architect and mystery-enthusiast Kurihara (Jiro Sato). He promptly signals another disturbing feature of the house on the second floor and urges him to discourage Yanaoka from buying it. Not long after his first stream has released – his view-count skyrocketing, he is messaged by Yuzuki Miyae (Rina Kawaei), who informs him that she might have useful information.
The narrative of A strange House turns, at least at first glance, around a simple mystery, the mystery concerning the function of the house. Are the strange architectural choices a sign of a dark desire to keep a child locked up within the house? Were these choices made to create a perfect place to murder and dispose of targets? Or is there a different explanation that can explain all these disturbing features?
Ishikawa quickly implies, within his narrative, that only the second explanation explains all the deviances from architectural normality, so another twist must be introduced to keep the flame of mystery burning and slowly further the plot: Miyae reveals that another similar house – one in Saitama – exist. This revelation produces one new question for the spectator. For who where these architectural anomalies built? And, if that is not enough, Ishikawa quickly adds another twist: Amemiya is attacked by a masked presence in his apartment, a presence warning him to stay away from that house. This twist adds two additional questions: Is something supernational involved? And is Miyae, whose footage seemingly provoked the disturbing attack, hiding something?
As delving further into the narrative runs the risk of spoiling the fun for the spectator, we will refrain from making other twists and turns explicit – i.e. the puzzle pieces that provide some signifying material, but also delineate what is missing from the picture. However, evocatively, we can say that everything leads to the uncovering of a dark and twisted family secret – prosperity intermingling with brutality (Narra-note 1 (spoiler)).
However, A Strange House is not a pure mystery film – solving the mystery is not the ultimate point. Rather, the rough solution to the secret, given to the spectator around forty minutes before the ending, is utilized to turn last half and hour in a more thriller-like denouement: the secret is the catalyst to breathe suspense in Amemiya and Yuzuki’s attempt to escape and, if possible, break the brutal consequences of the uncovered ‘truth’.
The composition of A Strange House offers a general stylistic frame – a straightforward mix of static shots and restrained dynamism (e.g. slow zoom-in movement) – and fluidly interwoven moments of shaky dynamic hand-held footage. The moments of hand-held footage, beyond having a clearly defined function within the narrative, sorts a ‘realizing’ effect on the fictionality of the film. Yet, rather than giving the narrative a kind of foundation within physical reality, the shakiness of the hand-held framing intensifies the mysterious foreboding quality of the house – giving the silent threat that emanates from the abandoned house an oppressive reality within the fictional frame (Cine-note 1).
Ishikawa invites the spectator to invest in the mystery of the narrative via the figure of Amamiya not only by coinciding the spectator’s gaze with his hand-held lens, but also by confronting him with the disconcerting images that materialize within his mind, by giving the spectator’s spinning wheel of imagination, as ignited by the Other’s signifiers (e.g. Kurehara’s) a definite image. Of course, not all the images of horror in A Strange House are figments of someone’s imagination – disconcerting shots decorate and heighten the impact of certain narrative revelations, thrilling moments of otherworldly horror brutally disrupt the frail equilibrium of the darkish atmosphere.
To set the mood of his narrative, Ishikawa relies on a dark lighting design, creating visual frames where dark shadows are overly prominent, and subdued and faded colour-schemes, giving the spaces within the frame uninvaded by darkness a subtle eerie quality (Colour-note 1). Of course, the prominence of darkness within the visual frame also allows Ishikawa to use the contrast between darkish shadows and shadowy colours to deliver some visually pleasant moments.
Ishikawa mainly relies on music to support the dimension of mystery and the arousal of suspense. Musical pieces seek to amplify the mysterious quality of certain narrative revelations (e.g. the existence of useless closed-off space, the double-doors on the second floor to the room without any windows, …), but also to give these revelations or explanations a foreboding and even threatening echo (Music-note 1). Ishikawa also turns to music to heighten the spectator’s fearful anticipation of a revelation that might or might not materialize within a suspenseful scene.
Ishikawa also gambles on diegetic sound effects to unsettle the spectator. By letting certain sounds within the mundane soundscape attain an intrusive quality (e.g. the scratching sound of a hand, Kurihara putting his spoon in his dessert, the sound of thunder, …etc.), he fleetingly subverts the mundane quality of the atmosphere to aurally support the foreboding mysteriousness introduced into the atmosphere by the non-diegetic musical accompaniment. In other instances, the use of intrusive sounds (e.g. the buzzing of a phone, a voice) seek to amplify the destabilized state of atmosphere and manipulate the spectator’s feeling of thrilling tension. In short, Ishikawa creates a ‘harmonious’ concatenation of obtrusive sounds and mysterious music to short-circuit the spectator’s attempt to find a comfortable place within the various space of the narrative.
However, while Ishikawa has all the elements – narrative and compositional – to make a thrilling disturbing horror-mystery, he ultimately falters to deliver an experience that deeply engages and satisfies the spectator. The source of this failure lies, in our view, in his refusal to manipulate the pace of his visual composition. Ishikawa, seemingly oblivious of the fact that such manipulation of punctuation affects the emotional flow, renders his stylistic elements unable to fulfill their ‘genre’ effect – mystery never feels mysterious enough; tensive sequences, while chaotic, never feel suspenseful enough. The finale is, due to this compositional mishap, a disappointing mess – one that might work for some, but also one that will leave many scratching their heads.
The beloved book Henna Ie by Uketsu had the potential to deliver a truly thrilling experience, yet this potential is squandered by Kentaro Ushio, who failed to translate the appeal of the novel into a filmic experience, and Ishikawa, who despite having all the ingredients to make a fulfilling filmic soup, lacks the skill to stir them effectively together. Uketsu, your work deserved better.
Notes
Narra-note 1: The narrative element of appeasing the so-called curse follows a rather strange logic. Rather than accepting the transgression – inscribing the suffering of the victim into the societal field, a religious-inspired ritual is installed to repel the consequences of having repressed the traumatic truth and perpetuate the act of repression.
Cine-note 1: Ishikawa does not only abide to this compositional split as he throws in a shaky shot to bring Yuzuki Miyae’s tale of her deceased husband visually to life.
Music-note 1: Ishikawa also relies on utter silence as a frame to amplify the impact of certain disconcerting revelations.
Colour-note 1: The colour-schemes are not only subdued – the vibrant warmth of colours erased as much as possible, but also to a more or lesser degree infected by a greenish tinge.