I've previously sung the praises of Japanese horror director Kōji Shiraishi on Pop Heist, with the Blu-ray release of his magnum opus Noroi: The Curse. I think it's safe to say that, since that film was originally released way back in 2005, Shiraishi's work has only gotten better, honing the craft of found-footage horror to produce new and ever more unsettling scares. With his latest offering, an adaptation of Sesuji's novel About a Place in the Kinki Region, Shiraishi pulls out all the stops for a genuinely spooky film.
Sesuji's 2023 book lends itself very well to a found-footage adaptation, as it is a linear story told through a mixed-media collection of chats, emails, texts, and uncovered documents. Not your standard novel, but that provides both authenticity and charm that should appeal to readers looking for nonstandard scares. A translation of the Japanese text just came out from Yen Press in mid-January 2026. To avoid having the ending spoiled by errant page flipping, the last pages are bound in a black envelope. It's classy.
The plot? The editor of a magazine about the supernatural goes missing, and his friend, Chihiro (played by actress and J-pop singer Miho Kanno), begins an investigation as to the cause. The cause is supernatural and spooky. I don't want to get into too much more than that, but I'll throw in that it involves ghosts in the woods, mysterious murders, cults, possession, and curses. It's debatable as to which one is the primary cause of the weirdness; it's not like a typical horror film, where you can point to one particular aspect and say "This is a werewolf movie," or "This is a ghost story," because there's so much stewing in the Kinki pot. Part of the fun is figuring it out.
The audience sees the investigation play out as Chihiro and her partner Yusei (Eiji Akaso) puzzle through piles of the evidence of an ancient evil at play. Their boss (Atom Shukugawa) was investigating something creepy, and they figure that's what vanished him. So they dig into the videos, the texts, the documents, and the maps he was working off of. Shiraishi has to mix the meta narrative of the disappearance with the story, told through the mixed media clues. This makes it quite a departure from Noroi: The Curse's 100% pure found-footage construction (Noroi didn't even have credits or a soundtrack, to preserve the illusion of authenticity).
I think it's safer to say this is a "movie with many found elements" rather than "a found-footage film." Unlike Noroi, you never get swept up in the Kinki narrative, with so many dramatic scenes shot on film that pull you out. Those scenes are mostly just setups for another home movie, YouTube clip, recorded newscast, or even animated children's show where the mystery slowly comes together — perhaps a little too cleanly.
And I think that's the director's biggest hurdle, to take what's supposed to be a collection of "Well, what the hell is all this?" and turn it into a story. There can't really be dead ends or extraneous footage, because everything shown on the screen has to count and be a part of the narrative and its discovery has to build on itself chronologically. The film would break down if the last clue were shown first. So the pieces, while exceedingly creepy on their own, have to be built off of an internal logic, which, for a film that's only 1 hour and 43 minutes, means that it feels fairly rushed and linear.
However, About a Place in the Kinki Region is downright scary. Much like Noroi: the Curse, so much happens in these short found scenes that you're glued to the screen trying to suss out tiny details within the backgrounds or hidden within the static. The whole film is a collection of unease. Who is the scratchy figure being repeatedly scrawled in graffiti art around Japan? What's going to happen to all those kids in the playground? Do we ever get to see who's behind the haunted voice coming from the woods? Why so many nooses? The film doesn't rest on much solid ground, so the audience is thrown from one scene of terror to the next without much cushioning or aftercare.
Alas, About a Place in the Kinki Region has not been officially released in the United States yet, but with the backing of a big studio like Warner Brothers behind it, the chances are good that we could see a Blu-ray release over here, if not a limited theatrical run. This would be terrifying to see in a small, dark theater, where every noise is amplified as a sense of dread builds toward the film's frenzied climax. In the meantime, if you can't find a Blu-ray copy online, the original novel has been translated into English and is available now.
