Watched a Japanese anthology called
Stories of Apparitions, also streaming on Netflix. Not bad, really, it had its moments. Like all horror anthologies, it had its hits and misses. Each story centers around a photograph that has a ghost in it.
The first story was about three young hikers who find the dead body of a man who had hung himself, and down at his feet is a strange photo with the words 'help me' written on back. As they try to leave the mountain, strange things occur. The next story is about a bizarre class photograph centering around a young girl who brings a curse to those pictured with her. The third story concerns a christmas party with some young teens and a Polaroid camera which has a habit of capturing unseen subjects. Interesting idea, but this was the weakest of the bunch by far due to terrible execution. A great movie waiting to be made about a Polaroid camera would be an adaptation of the Stephen King story 'Sundog'. The fourth story concerns a man who is secretly obsessed with a woman and takes hidden pictures of her but finds some kind of entity in the pictures with her. The final story has a young woman receiving a unexplained picture in the mail of a family photo with some kind of apparition behind them. The acquisition of this strange picture brings with it a curse which compels her to find the picture's origin.
'Stories of Apparitions' is a fairly routine Japanese ghost movie. It does not have a big budget, it is shot on video, but it looks more polished and professional than most video filmed movies, so I didn't find that detracted from this movie. It goes for the quiet creepy thrills rather than a loud, hectic scream fest. Some segments fair better than others. It is not up there with classics like Ju-on or Ringu, but I have seen worse from this genre.