Pray came out in 2005 and, as such, being so late in the supernatural horror cycle, you'd think at the very least director Yuichi Sato could take a chance and do something different, make mark, have a spin, rather than fall prey to the standard spook flick cliches. It starts out promising enough, the first scene is between out two leads, twenty-something lover criminals Mitsuri (Tetsuji TamaYama) and Maki (Asami Mizukawa) fresh off the kidnaping of a little schoolgirl named Ai, who is passed out from sleeping pills in the backseat of the car. So, right from the get-go, the viewer is placed in the thick of it, instantly grabbing you an demanding you pay attention.

The rest of the film land locks itself into that old horror cliche, the one location horror film. In the case of Pray, Mitsuri has decided his recently abandoned, old elementary school (An elementary school out in the middle of nowhere??? Okay, roll with it.) is the perfect place to hide out and strike a ransom deal with Ai's parents. But much to the duos dismay, Ai's parents insist that their daughter is dead having disappeared over a year ago. No sooner do they hang up the phone, than the girl disappears.

Throughout the rest of the film, our ghost girl is sought after, appearing from time to time only to get away again, three of Mitsuki's buddies (one being an alpha male psycho named Yasuda) show up and want a piece of the action, bodies start to pile up, and Mitsuki is haunted by memories of his past when he witnessed his sister getting run over by a car. Occasionally the story breaks up the semi-suspense at the ethereal elementary school by cutting to Ai's parents who are visiting a spiritualist to find out if their long-missing daughter is actually dead (mom thinks she is, dad, strangely, accuses the fortune teller of ripping him off because he paid to hear his daughter was alive).

Because it makes no qualms about the little girl being a ghost and is largely locked to one setting, the script for Pray has to come up with some suitable twists to keep viewers hooked. While we, the viewer, know Ai is a spirit, Mitsuki and crew have their doubts. And even though we know she is a ghost, there is some question as to wether she is a benign or deadly ghost. Maki might see another person/ghost lurking around the school and when they begin to get killed off (the dead person found with one hand severed) there is also suspicion that the killer may be one of the kidnaping crew.

There really wasn't much to sustain my interest. I've seen so many of these films by now, I've really got to see something special to grab me, some kind of twist, fright, or directorial flourish. There were a couple of decent jump scares and some strains at drama, but mostly it just felt like a familiar pattern- girl disappears, they wander around the eerie hallways looking for her, briefly find her, Mitsuki has a flashback, a body shows up, Mitsuki and Maki argue, they go looking for the girl again... rinse and repeat. The finale ends up being a good howl when the remaining (living and paranormal) characters have a face off and the human characters all die via being tripped. I imagine the writer fell in the shower the day he wrote the conclusion and somehow bull-headedly stuck with it. Minor quibble, I also never quite understood why Mitsuki and Maki were together since he looks like a rocker-boy and she looks like a hip hop- girl (I guess the producers wanted to appeal to both youth cultures).

The DVD: Tartan.

Picture: Anamorphic Widescreen. I'm going to assume this film was limited in its theatrical run and mainly intended direct to video. Everything about the budget and scale, plus the brief running time, suggests that it was such a film.

This sucker is dark. It is one thing to have a film set in a dim location at night, it is another to have 80% of the running time so murkily lit that your eyes end up straining. When they first enter the school, it is mired in darkness and I hoped to god they'd find a power switch and turn on some lights. They eventually do and it doesnt help much unless a character is standing right under the light. Adding further to the film's darkness problem is a very weak grayscale which dilutes the entire image of its color and sharpness vibrancy. Perhaps because of the low lighting they had to really push up the contrast and lose some shadow details.

Sound:DTS, 5.1, or 2.0 Stereo. Optional English or Spanish subtitles. Audio is good, no problems with budget limitations or any ill-recorded bits. There doesn't really seem to be much difference between the DTS and 5.1 tracks, most likely due to the source which is simple and effective but doesn't really offer much room for too many dynamics. The subtitles appear perfect, well-timed with no grammatical errors.

Extras: Slipcase.--- Making of Featurette (11:13).--- Pray Q&A Screening (15:06).--- Original Trailer, plus more Tartan release trailers.

The extra features were pretty standard, more promotion oriented than actually giving deep insight into the making of the project.

Conclusion: Low budgets and limited locations can often lead to cinematic inventiveness; however Pray is the sort of film that becomes mired in its limitations and is, in the end, terribly mediocre. The disc itself is only fair, the films image isn't very pleasing (not so much a transfer problem as a production quirk) and the extras are forgettable. At best, a rental for (Asian) horror fanatics, otherwise I would suggest skipping it altogether.