Horror films, and more specifically Japanese horror films, have never been my cup of tea. I just never got into them. Sure, I’ve enjoyed a few horror films over the years, but mostly for their comedic value. Their horror aspects have never done anything for me. So why did Larry, our Czar of Promotions, send this DVD of Yuichi Sato’s Pray to me to review? I don’t know, but since it came my way, I was willing to give it a fair shot. The premise - a young couple, desperate for money, kidnaps a little girl who turns out to have died one year earlier – sounded interesting enough so I was able to watch it with an objective mind. I cannot say I was disappointed by it.

Mitsuru (Tetsuji Tamayama) and Maki (Asami Mizukawa) are that young couple. Their plan is to kidnap the girl and hide out in an abandoned school until their demands for ransom are met. It’s a fun concept, I suppose, but hiding in an abandoned school seems a little contrived. And isn’t it a little weird that the abandoned school had working electricity running? Getting past that, the old school is a perfect place to set such a story because there are so many rooms, and since it’s old and abandoned, it’s also dirty and creepy. It’s a nice place for bizarre things to happen.

And since we’re talking about Japanese horror here, of course bizarre things are going to happen. Mitsuru and Maki have to be two of the dumbest kidnappers I’ve ever seen. They kidnap this girl and put her into a room in the school and then leave her unattended. Then they wonder what happened to her when she wasn’t there when they went to check on her. It seemed kind of obvious to me that she’d go somewhere else. But she didn’t leave the school. Then Mitsuru and Maki discover that the girl they kidnapped had apparently died a year ago that day. How was this possible? They had her. They kidnapped her and took her to this school. She seemed real. What is she? Is she a ghost? Crazy shit.

Then some of Mitsuru and Maki’s friends show up and people start dying and there’s blood and stuff and all of the usual stuff you expect from a Japanese horror flick. And there’s also a small subplot involving the parents of the little girl, which wasn’t very interesting.

The thing I don’t get about Pray is why Mitsuru and Maki didn’t do anything to restrain this little girl. If you kidnap someone, shouldn’t you make sure that you have control over said person? I would think so, but then I guess a lot of good horror is predicated upon people being stupid and irrational, so this isn’t any different. Still, when this girl would repeatedly disappear and reappear, they should have done something to stop it, but they didn’t.

It would be inaccurate for me to say I disliked this film because I didn’t. It’s a genre I don’t typically go for, but it’s a well-made film with an intriguing plot and some good moments of horror. I was a little disappointed by the relative lack of gore. There’s not a whole lot of that to be found here. Still, Pray probably isn’t for your grandma.

As a bonus, if you’re into attractive Asian ladies, as I am, Maki’s kinda hot. And she wears a short skirt.

Video
It looks pretty good. Almost the entire story takes place inside the school and it’s very darkly lit, but details are still good. It’s very drab and dreary and this DVD plays that up well. Just don’t expect this DVD to be the one you show off on your new HDTV and you’ll be fine.

Audio
Yeah, it sounds fine. I don’t speak Japanese so I can’t say I understood the dialogue, but it worked for me. I checked out samples of both the Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 tracks and couldn’t discern any difference. This is not a DVD which benefits greatly from the included DTS track.

Since it has Japanese audio and it’s a Region 1 DVD, Tartan did the smart thing and included English and Spanish subtitles. I cannot vouch for the Spanish subtitles since I don’t know much Spanish, but I will say the English seemed very good. I had no trouble following the story, something I know is not always the case on Asian imports. But this is an import intended for America so Tartan did it up right.

Extra Features
The Making of Pray (11:13) – This is a typical on-the-set short documentary on the making of the film. There’s one big difference, though. It’s entirely in Japanese (with English subtitles). Nothing earth-shattering is revealed here although I did learn that Sato is good at making his cast laugh. It’s kind of pointless seeing them all laugh because I fail to see what they’re laughing at. Still, it’s nice seeing a documentary on an import title like this.

Interview with Director and Actor (15:05) – This is actually a Q&A session with Sato and Tamayama that appears to have been shot after a public screening. I wasn’t particularly interested in what these guys had to say, but again it’s very nice to see such stuff included on the DVD. It’s also in Japanese with English subtitles.

Original Trailer (1:11) – It’s non-anamorphic widescreen and it looks like crap. It would have been nice if they had cleaned it up a little. And it’s really short. I don’t know how it’s supposed to make me want to watch the movie.

Also included are Trailers for other Tartan Asia Extreme titles including Marebito, Natural City, R-Point, Ab-Normal Beauty. I didn’t watch these because they didn’t interest me and I was already disappointed by the Pray trailer.

Packaging
Pray isn’t a cheap import. It’s a nice looking disc in a standard case with a nice cardboard slip-cover. Not bad at all.

Parting Words
I’d never say Pray is my kind of film, but it’s pretty good for what it is and I imagine fans of the genre will enjoy it quite a bit. Tartan Video has released a very nice DVD.