Director Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge franchise) is a pretty busy man, having pumped out a new genre flick every year or two in his home country of Japan. Ox-Head Village is his latest endeavor, which is apparently the final installment in his “Village Trilogy” that began with Howling Village (2019) and Suicide Forest Village (2021) both of which I’ve yet to see.

I believe the only connection the movies have with each other are their blended themes of Japanese folklore and urban legends with modern twists and supernatural elements, so watching them out of order shouldn’t be a problem (at least I hope not).

The story behind Ox-Head Village revolves around a couple school friends as they travel to a small village in the outskirts of Japan after discovering a viral clip that depicts a few young female friends exploring a reportedly haunted building for the likes and follows. In this process, one of the females ends up vanishing after a prank goes wrong.

To make things more mysterious is the fact that the girl that disappeared looks identical to our female lead, which results in her traveling to the village in an attempt find some answers from the girls in the video (because someone looking like someone else is impossible, right?).

Once they reach the village things go about as you’d expect: strange visions, odd encounters, and a little bit of urban exploring. As we progress, certain elements are revealed that as a viewer you probably would’ve already guessed, but it comes as a surprise to our leads, even if it seems a bit far-fetched. The dark truth behind the village also comes to light and sadly that too is easily predicted, but uncovering the mystery surrounding it was still an interesting watch.

Clocking in at nearly two hours, the movie could’ve benefited from a little runtime trimming, but being a more story-driven effort, I won’t knock it too much for that because the story remained interesting for the most part. The film offers some decent scares that are spread out enough as to not overwhelm or bore the viewer, even if they weren’t really anything a veteran horror fan hasn’t already seen, especially if they’re familiar with Japanese horror.

In the end Ox-Head Village isn’t director Takashi Shimizu’s best, but it also isn’t his worst. It’s a fairly predictable movie, but one that still manages to offer an interesting story and that’s more than I can say for a lot of other horror flicks nowadays.

This film screened as part of Fantaspoa 2022. For more information on the festival, please visit www.fantaspoa.com.