I’m not the best judge of horror, because it’s not really my genre, but this didn’t seem to be executed very well. I’m definitely interested in some of the plot threads it’s setting up, but there’s a lot of weirdness that doesn’t really work, I think.

For example, in the scene where Ren explains the book, Sumireko is actively dying, bleeding out of her ears and then her eyes, and they’re just standing there chatting, until Ren finally says they have to hurry and find somewhere with moonlight… while being dramatically lit by the moon. It undercuts its own tension, which is the lifeblood of a horror story.

I also feel like they didn’t do enough work to set up Sumireko’s motivation until she decided to keep the book and its magic. They had explained her situation, but they hadn’t really gone very deep into her feelings about it, so to me it felt out of nowhere that she was willing to risk her own life. And the other half of our main duo isn’t doing much better on the characterization front, since Ren feels like a creepy old man with the way he constantly hits on Sumireko (call HR, girl!), when I feel like he would be better served by being a much more horror type of creepy.

good premise, but underwhelming execution, 2/5