It Comes

Newlyweds Hideki and Kana have just moved into their brand new apartment. While on the surface they seem like an idyllic couple with a baby on the way, there’s something a bit off about their relationship. After a series of ominous events hinting toward Hideki’s dark past, their home is repeatedly attacked by some sort of supernatural entity. When a journalist with a fascination with the occult and his psychic girlfriend arrive to investigate, the would-be sleuths and the happy couple soon realize that the target of this “bogiwan” (boogeyman) is Hideki and Kana’s newborn daughter, and the terror they are facing is far beyond anyone’s imagination.

Journeyman director Tetsuya Nakashima may not be as prolific as some of his fellow Japanese auteurs, but since bursting onto the international scene with his third film Kamikaze Girls in 2004, he has yet to make a bad one. In his follow up to BUFF 2015 selection The World of Kanako, It Comes marks Nakashima’s first foray into pure-genre horror filmmaking. Balancing the frightening with the fantastical, Nakashima adds baroque flourishes as he tightens the screws in this mesmerizing adaptation of Ichi Sawamura’s award-winning haunted house story. Audiences will be as unprepared as the film’s protagonists for the jarring twists, shifting perspectives and disturbing images that It Comes foists upon you. Viewer discretion is certainly advised.