This movie is like a video game, Elvira style, if anyone remembers it :) Girl inherits spooky house, goes there, finds out about her family and childhood and "the terrible secret". The fact that the whole thing was done in order to create materials for a video game added an element of obvious to the movie.I liked the actors, they played well for their parts, you might recognize the girl from Ju-On The Grudge, cute as ever. I felt that the starting idea was very promising and if the movie would have drifted in the "asian horror" area, it could have been a very interesting movie about teenager enterprise. This way, the film wasn't serious enough to be called a horror, nor was is funny enough to be called a comedy. And I have come to dislike movies that increase their level of complexity by mirroring themselves (let's do a movie about making a movie about...).In the end it was OK, but nothing special. I would rather play Elvira again.

Nami's is creating a video game with the images from her dreams. While visiting her estrange father's abandoned house that was inherited to her along with her workmate/ex-boyfriend Kohei, she discovers the dreams that she has seem to match that of the house and some hidden secrets too. It's basically a mystery/horror film about a creepy house and its dark secrets.This was one really SLOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW film, with nothing really exciting happening at all… actually to be honest nothing much did happen. Though you might say it was slowly building up the psychological terror that was about to come- but towards the end it turns into somewhat of a bloodbath of graphic images that doesn't really gel. All it was about was two teenagers wondering around a dark creepy house and Nami discovering secrets about her family… it's too bad because it came across as very atmospheric- but it was really tedious sitting through this drag-fest. The film looked great- but that's it, I had trouble trying not to fall asleep, as there was nothing engaging and mysterious about the story and characters. The plot doesn't make much sense at all, it was truly incoherent and all over the place as one scene slowly dragged onto the next without any real urgency, then you get a twist that you see coming- but then it would twist back on itself and your left scratching your head… fancy that? But this final twist lacks logic, as it's not fully explained and therefore is ridiculously laughable.What I can't knock is the sinister and chilling atmosphere, with a misty house that is truly atmospheric and unnerving, especially the paintings on the walls, the menacing shadows, dim lighting and dark corners. The colours stood out as well and become somewhat of an impact, very bleak and depressing colourings of greys, browns and black, created a real emptiness. The flashy camera-work (something you would associate with Sam Rami) is quite out there and very arty at first- but it was over-used to a point that it became real choppy and distracting, because at times you couldn't tell what was actually happening. The performances were the same as the plot, really flat and uninspiring. That's because they're given nothing to work with and they don't do anything of any interest. Therefore… who cares!!! When the outlandishly grim conclusion happens and we start learning where the film is actually going, you couldn't really give a toss, as you were bored to death waiting for an hour for something good to happen. Instead for that hour we get look at dark rooms and more rooms, in many different stylish ways- but then something actually happens and it picks up in the last 15mins, though people might have given up already and I wished I did. To make matters worse the film ends with a very absurd and unsatisfying conclusion… *Shaking head*.Like some fellow users have typed, the film does play out like a video game. Though I admit I'm no video game fanatic- but the problem is it's like your watching somebody else playing the game, which isn't that fun... I rather be playing it!Just expect to see the usual harrowing images, a creepy house with spooky noises and things lurking. Oh don't forget an evil looking girl with long black hair in a white dress. I bet you didn't see that coming. Looks visually good, but this yawner lacks punch as nothing much happens!1/5

This movie was of particular poor quality. While I can see that a lot of the images and camera-angles were in place to highlight the "new" technology of digital filming and video games, these images lost me and left me feeling a little nauseous. They were not effective in making the film scarier or more compelling. It seems the movie was made too fast, just to get on the market to show off the technology. It looks mass-produced and uninteresting.The plot was nil and the ending atrocious. By the end, I nearly turned off the movie because I could not handle the unfinished story line, poor acting and predictability. The plot "twists" were unexciting. Unfortunately, this movie was absolutely terrible. I felt nothing for the characters, who were not well-developed and the plot did not entice me, and honestly, I'm pretty disappointed. The film case makes reference to the ring, but this film has no relation (in story or quality) to the ring, ringu, any remakes or any sequels.

Another mystery-girl-in-white J-flick, along with the Ringu series, Tomie, Saimin the film, Dark Water, and others, surely, that I've forgotten or not run into. Not really though. Really it's a film about gaming or game-making, about building game-sized artificial worlds.I'm not much of a gamer. My computer favorites are go and chess. I've played a very few first person shooters, sometimes cheating my way through firefights to get through levels just to see what really interests me: the worlds created, the degree of immersion. That's the same thing, in a way, I come to film for. But what the St. John's Wort programmers seem to be working on is a role-playing or adventure game, a game relying more on choice than dexterity. What little violence the game displays is so key that it would have to be scripted or portrayed in cut scenes, short films triggered by a gamer's choices. Much is made of mapping, on the home-base computers, Nami's mansion. I've always wondered whether the world of, say, Half-Life is geometrically true, whether four equidistant 90-degree turns would bring me back to a point of origin. I've even spent some time peeking, with cheat codes, through walls to try to test this. You see rooms connected, chained, yet hanging in black void, separated by spaces the programmers didn't bother with because you can't legitimately get to them. In St. John's Wort's slightly sci-fi world, every angle is true. The home base crew map the mansion, relying on nothing but live video over a phone line. Interestingly the work screens displayed sometimes do show that black void, as an area not centered or a room undiscovered.If any of that intrigues you, don't fear to see the film. Just realize, dull characters in a cardboard plot are part of the show. The visuals, the color scheme, the maybe failed, maybe not concept, and your own perception of ideas about overlays of story, plot, reality are what, if anything will make it worth the time.St. John's Wort is a yellow-flowered medicinal herb that once stood for revenge. Think of mad Ophelia: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance...And there's pansies, that's for thoughts (IV,v). Another touchpoint film is the 1969 Jigokuhen (Portrait of Hell). The paintings in St. John's Wort, possibly because you see them so fleetingly and unclearly, are more horrific than those in the older film. Yet another film about gaming is Mamoru Oshii's Avalon.Finally, if you like St. John's Wort, then here are couple of extremely fine first person shooters that share none of its story but some of its atmosphere: System Shock 2 (out of print but if you find it) and Neil Manke's They Hunger, a trilogy of Half-Life mods. They Hunger 2 ends with such an odd, maybe existential, dilemma (trapped in a courtyard, you're supposed to hit a prominent red switch, blowing yourself up, to end the game, but you don't really have to hit it, you can just stand, or go hide in a shadow, and you'll be there alive, albeit bored, until your computer dies of old age or the next Enron shuts it down) that I wrote to the Manke and got a appreciative-sounding response.