Kuchisake-onna

The most disturbing thing about this film is not the ghost story or the grotesque features of the title character, but the way it clumsily attempts to use the issue of child abuse in order to get an emotional response from the viewer. Maybe it would have worked with a more accomplished script, but here it just feels ham-fisted and left me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. The rest of the film does what you expect from this genre, although the production values are particularly poor.

Slit-mouth woman is quite impressive character; tall woman with huge scissors, Sadly the movie is quite cheap & trashy later J-Horror entry. Actors overreact comically, inner logic doesn't hold up; silliness like the slit-mouth woman constantly kicking her victims. Children are not spared and some scenes are quite nasty. It's like they wanted to say something about child abuse, but failed to articulate it. Face masks are heavily used which gives it an extra effect during covid-19 lockdown.

video review: https://youtu.be/hccWxTxOSYI Looks cheap and amateur all around. The pacing is unorthodox, showing the titular slit-mouthed woman almost immediately and then repeating the same story beats a dozen times until the climax. The slit-mouthed woman just is not frightening at all and she is always presented in brightly lit full-shots out in the open. The lore is somewhat interesting but not very well thought out. Most of the "scary" moments come off as goofy instead.

A very, very typical modernized kaidan (ghost story) consisting of the regular formula of a popular scary story horrifically materializing and the main characters investigating and slowly unveiling the mystery. They infused it with something about battered children, the logic of which kind of went over my head. I hoped for a few real scares but it was all very tame (for a dedicated horror viewer). I'd give this a pass.

Japanese ghost films always freak me out. The ghost in this one is terrifying, but the plot is a bit convoluted and on the slow side.