Bandai has released two live action Japanese TV shows on DVD.  The first one, Blood Hound, was a comedy/horror program where the jokes fell flat and the stories were a bit silly.  The second of these shows is Fantasma:  The Cursed Mansion, a horror show that promises some spine tingling suspense, but just doesn't deliver.

The first volume of Fantasma contains two complete stories, each of which is two episodes long.  The stories are not linked at all except that they take place in the same city.  The disc starts off with The 2 A.M. Cheerleader.   Morita is a young college student who is trying out for the cheerleading squad, but she just isn't that good.  Her timing is off and she constantly drops her pom-poms, so she's on the verge of being kicked off the team.  That is until she buys an antique mirror from an odd store near her apartment.  She starts practicing in front of the mirror and her skills improve dramatically.

When Moria lets a sick (male) friend rest at her apartment one evening, things start to get bad for the young lady.  The man was only faking it and tries to rape Moria, but when he looks into the mirror, he sees his face bloodied and disfigured.  That is enough to get him to leave, but at exactly 2 AM, the rapist is in an accident and dies.

Moria's life gets really rough after that.  In the next week, there are two more rape attempts against her, both in her apartment and both of the perpetrators end up dying at 2 AM.  It's obvious that the mirror doesn't appreciate people trying to rape Moria, but how will it react when she gets a boyfriend and willingly has sex?

The next story is Always Together, another story that never quite lives up to its potential.  Miki is an aspiring actress who has just caught the boyfriend she was co-habitating with cheating on her.  She kicks him out, but needs a new roommate to help pay the rent.  The ad she puts in the paper gets a lot of response and she ends up choosing to live with Shoko Mizusawa, a serious, studious law student.  Shoko demands that no men be allowed in the apartment, and has even drawn up a contract to that extent.  With the rent paid in advance however, that isn't a big deal for Miki.  It isn't until after she's agreed to let Shoko move in that Miki discovers her new roommate has a rather odd trait:  She has a ceramic doll that she treats as if it were human.  Miki is a little freaked out by this, but when she discovers the real secret behind the doll, she'll be even more astounded.

These episodes weren't all that good.  They had all the suspense and fright of one of the poorer episodes of Night Gallery.  One of the biggest problems was that neither story resolved the questions that were raised. (Why did the mirror kill Moria's rapists?  Why did these deaths occur at 2 AM?  How and why did Shoko and the doll become connected?)  Instead the tales just ended without explanations.

The plots were pretty simplistic too, and both stories felt drawn out.  Viewers will quickly deduce that the mirror is causing people to die in the first tale, for example, but they replay the same scenario three times and Moria STILL doesn't see the connection.  There were many times that I was thinking "yes, yes, let's get on with it."  That's not a good thing for a horror show.

Audio:

This disc comes with the original Japanese soundtrack in stereo along with optional English subtitles.  There isn't a bud track.  The audio was about average for a low budget production.  There wasn't a huge amount of dynamic range, and the dialog comes across as a bit thin.  In addition, the background music is pretty anemic sounding.  Besides that the show sounds fine.

Video:

Like Blood Hound, the full frame image doesn't look that great, but this is due to the poor production qualities rather than the fault of the publisher.  The series has a real low budget feel to it and looks like a low grade soap opera.  Some scenes are too bright and filled with blooming whites and others are too dark.  The image has fine detail, but it looks like it was recorded on low-grade digital video tape.  Aliasing was a major problem with many scenes being marred by jagged lines.   Overall I wasn't impressed with this DVD.

Extras:

The only bonus item is a textless opening.  Oh yeah, and there's a trailer for The Great Horror Family.

Final Thoughts:

This series just doesn't have a lot going for it.  While the acting is better than Blood Hound, the stories were too poorly thought out and lacked any kind of suspense or tension.  They also seemed drawn out and padded.  There are some great Japanese horror DVDs out there, but this isn't one of them.  Skip it.