Effectively creepy exercise, with a punch-to-the-heart kind of ending that harks back to THE ORPHANAGE, PRAY is well worth seeing. Audiences whose tastes have been dulled by decades of worthless slasher flicks will find it nigh impossible to appreciate something genuinely scary. As with many of the Asian imports, PRAY often relies on understatement and sheer creepiness to enthrall- and it works. The fact that the kidnapping victim turns out to be a young girl ALREADY DEAD is, in and of itself, enough of a twist to move PRAY to the front of the (must-see) line: it pulls you in and holds your attention (unless you have the attention span of a fruit fly) and, in the end, delivers on an emotional level. What more can one ask from a fright film...?

Mitsuru and Maki(Tetsuji Tamayama & Asami Mizukawa)are looking for a big pay day fast and kidnap a girl asking for a heavy ransom, but are in for a wallop of a surprise..the girl they kidnapped is said by her family to be dead for exactly a year on the letter!! Well, it isn't as simple as that in this intriguing ghost story whose ambition outweighs it's execution. The setting is a now-closed down school where our couple believe to be a good enough place to hold a child hostage until they get paid. But, as the story develops, we get an understanding of who this spooky girl really is. But, not just that..we find out who REALLY done the selecting to begin with. Right away the girl shows an eerie attachment to Mitsuru. She doesn't want him to leave her but often plays disappearing acts with Mitsuru and Maki. The first fifteen or so minutes shows them trying to find her throughout the halls, but we soon find that it isn't they who do the finding but she who allows them to see her. Soon, Mitsuru's "buddies" come to the school, but how they got their information of this location comes in play with a plot twist that changes the whole relationship between our couple's life together. An important thematic element..Yasuda(Mitsuyoshi Shinoda)is the major source of conflict and his relationship with a certain girl(s) will come to major importance as the film comes to a close. Yasuda puts pressure on Mitsuru to get the ransom so that he can pay for drugs. This shows how far Mitsuru has sunk in his life. A key turning point in the film comes when we actually find who this girl really is, what happened to the girl Mitsuru and Maki were supposed to have kidnapped, and the reasons behind several murders and spooky goings-on in the school.The setting and it's selection, not to mention the girl's fascination with Matsuru's "not leaving" are key components in the overall scheme of things in this ghost story. The deaths that occur to certain characters who get what's coming to them is secondary to a surprise ending which gears more towards a sad closing between two people who make peace with themselves. That final fifteen minutes will probably not work for most people because it's quite a mood changer that really creates a bit of an unevenness, but overall the film provides some good creepy moments as characters search dark hallways as something hiding in the distance lurks. Overall the film doesn't quite hit the high marks like it wishes, and we question who was actually killing all the people in the film.

It was a really good movie. It kept me guessing and trying to figure out what happens. A few things weren't answered though, so I counted against that. It wasn't very gory at all (lest someone believes blood to be very gory). If it were longer and had more scenes I believe it would be way better. Being a 2005 movie the computer graphic parts could have been way better, there were some cheesy parts that just made me giggle. I'm certainly not used to Japanese horror movies, because American's rely mainly on suspense. They should have given a few of those actors a bit more air time, and not everyone should have died. The main guy should have gotten out of it alive, but thats my opinion (he was cute after all). I rented the movie, but I certainly would buy it any chance I got. I like it enough though, two thumbs up.

This movie is really creepy and gory! It's kind of stereotypical on a lot of levels, which I will explain below, but still seriously freaky! Basically, it's about these two people who want money for drugs, so they decide to kidnap this girl and ransom her back to her parents to earn money. The only problem is - the girl is dead. She died a year ago!! In my opinion it's a really cool premise. Now, here's where the stereotypes come in. The little girl has long stringy black hair, there's obviously a supernatural element to her, she seems invincible, the sight of her means potential death, etc., etc. We have all seen this type of stuff before. Remember the Ring? But, it really does never cease to freak me out, or a lot of other people, which is why I guess it has become such a successful and consequently stereotypical villain –particularly in Asian horror. But anyway, in my opinion it works well as a good horror film, not so much as an original piece of work, despite the intriguing premise.