Movie Review: 'Tales of Terror: The Haunted Apartments' (2005)

I stumbled upon this horror gem by typing in "Japanese horror" in YouTube's search bar. That's right, the FULL movie is on YouTube. Tales of Terror: The Haunted Apartments was directed by Akio Yoshida and released in 2005.

If you are into psychological or paranormal horror films then you've found the right movie, because it has a nice combination of both elements throughout the film.

Plot: Father and daughter (Yamato and Aimi) move into a new apartment complex after the death of Aimi's mother in a car accident. Because of the mother's death, Yamato becomes an alcoholic. Upon moving into the new apartment, the landlord warns them that the building has rules: 1. Be in the building by midnight and 2. No one can move out until someone new moves in. While being shown around the complex and introduced to the tenants, Aimi noticed another teenage girl about her age starring at her from a balcony. When Aimi asks one of the neighbors about the girl, they respond that no such person exists. As Aimi and her father Yamato settle in, weird paranormal stuff starts happening around the apartment. Aimi seeks answers from one of her neighbors, who informs Aimi that there used to be a girl the same age as her, named Ai, who used to live in the building 30 years ago but never returned home from school one day (she also warns Aimi not to say her name in the building or bad things will happen). The film then follows each family in the building and shows the demonic presence of Ai in each of the tenants' lives. The ghost of Ai makes people murder their loved ones in super effed up, realistic dreams, terrorizing the tenants emotionally and spiritually. For example, a family runs into money issues because the father's job required him to transfer, but the father did not want to break the "can't move out into someone new moves in" rule, resulting in financial trouble. That family is later on murdered by Ai's ghost because the father decided to try and beat the curse by moving to another city. Ai not only haunts the apartment complex, but haunts the personal life of each tenant. Towards the end of the film, Aimi takes it upon herself to find more information about Ai that might help lift the curse. She resorts to doing research, asking neighbors, and creeping around the building. Yamato (Aimi's father) is a freelance journalist. The landlord and the other tenants end up finding out about an article he was writing that exposed the horrors of the apartment. The tenants, fearing Ai's wrath, ambush Yamato and Aimi, in an attempt to keep them from leaving the apartment and spreading the news about it. (If anyone was to find out about the apartment, then no one would move in, leaving the veteran tenants stuck there forever because of rule #2). Aimi and Yamato escape the apartment. Aimi ends up creeping again and finding the (imaginary?) corpse of Ai inside of an old wall. After she discovers the body she begins having visions into Ai's past life and learns that Ai was raped by her father. Aimi reveals that the two girls have this experience in common. (PLOT TWIST!) Aimi ends up luring her father back to the apartment and allowing Ai's ghost to kill him.

While watching Ai's ghost kill her father, Aimi says, "Serves you right. It's your fault. You shouldn't do things that people don't want you to do."

Yamato lets out a struggling "I'm sorry," before being killed by Ai's ghost. Dramatic... A... F.

I give this movie an 8.5/10. The storyline was well written and creative in my opinion. Two seemingly simple rules ended up controlling all aspects of the tenants' lives. And that plot twist!? Ai and Aimi share the experience of being raped by their fathers. There were no hints (at least, that I could notice) to this secret throughout the film so I was pleasantly surprised (with the presence of the plot twist, not the actual plot twist because that's just terrible).

So that's pretty much Tales of Terror: The Haunted Apartments. It gives you psychological horror, it gives you ghosts, it gives you creepy legends and folklore, it also gives you blood and a bit of strangling. If you're into any of these, this is the movie for you.

To watch.