Another one of the Eight Films To Die For series that's been released by After Dark through Lion's Gate, Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation is an interesting movie that suffers from some obvious pacing issues but which ultimately delivers on its clever premise.

Spooky things are afoot in Japan when various inconsequential characters start seeing what could be ghosts related to their past lives appearing in random places, such as the middle of the road in the woods at night, in a mirror, or in a cafeteria. From there we meet an actress named Nagisa Sugiura (played by Yuka) who is auditioning for a role in a horror film called Memory directed by Ikuo Matsumura (Kippei Shiina of Shinobi – Heart Under Blade) and based on some true events which happened thirty-odd years ago. It seems that a professor who was studying the science, or lack thereof, behind reincarnation got too into his work and went insane, proceeding to kill his family and a few innocent bystanders while staying in a hotel one evening.

At any rate, Nagisa gets the part and off she goes to work on the film which will be shot in the actual hotel where the murders took place many years before. Rather than simply reenact the murders, the director intends to open up the movie a little bit and focus in on the lives and subsequent deaths of the eleven victims who died that night. Of course, once the production starts, the angry ghosts who cannot rest and who still haunt the grounds may or may not start to appear, making things difficult and rather deadly for the cast and crew of the production.

Directed by Takashi Shimizu (the man partially responsible for kick starting the Japanese horror boom that's been running rampant for the last decade or so with films like Ju-On: The Grudge and its American remake, The Grudge), Reincarnation starts off very, very slowly. In fact, for the first twenty-five minutes of the film, nothing happens of consequence. We get a couple of random ghostly images to start with but they have very little to do with the actual plot of the film, which kind of wanders slowly through some initial character development (we learn how Nagisa Suguira was uncomfortable with how the director was looking at her, for one) bits until things finally start to build upon the film's arrival at the hotel. Once we're there, Shimizu gets to do what he does best, and that's sucker punch us with some effective jump scares and build a very thick and ominous atmosphere that all leads to a rather satisfactory conclusion. That being said, the first hour of this film is tough to sit through, even for those of us used to the often slow pace of the Japanese horror films of late.

As far as the look of the film goes, Shimizu does a great job here. He captures a sort of melancholy vibe that suits the material nicely and even when nothing much is really happening early on, at least the picture looks really good and shows of some appealing cinematography. The performers are all fine in their respective parts, with Yuka standing out in that she is perfectly believable in her performance as a young, aspiring actress looking for her big break. Kippei Shiina is reliable as the well intending director who is inadvertently responsible for opening up a ghostly can of worms by shooting on the actual locations where the murders his movie is based on transpired.

When it's all said and done, the ending is strong enough and spooky enough that Reincarnation is worth a watch but the first two thirds move so slowly that it's difficult to really recommend it wholeheartedly. Had the pacing been improved this could have been a great little ghost movie, instead it is an interesting picture with some obvious problems.

Video:

The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer isn't bad but there's more grain than you might expect to see and the image isn't quite as clean as you'd probably expect from a movie made only a couple of years ago. Color reproduction is decent if a little on the flat side and skin tones look lifelike and natural. Detail levels aren't bad in the foreground though the background is just a little on the soft side. There are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts or with heavy edge enhancement, though the occasional instance of line shimmering is easily spotted in a couple of scenes. Overall, while this isn't a reference quality disc, it looks pretty decent despite a few minor flaws.