After making his mark on the J-Horror landscape with
Ju-On and
Ju-On 2 (which most American audiences will know better by their gaijin remakes as the
Grudge movies), Japanese director Takashi Shimizu went a different route with his follow-up: a supernatural sitcom. As such, we were given "
The Great Horror Family": the story of the Imawano household and their new haunted abode. Think of it as an Eastern hybrid of
House meets "
Full House"... only without all the a-holes and dipshits... and the theme music's words will never be in doubt when drunk people try singing them 10 years later, because they consist entirely of "La La La La La La... The Great Horror Family... Oh!"...
Osamu Imawano is the head of the family and a part-time ghosthunter. You know, the kind of guy who's convinced that spooks and goblins are everywhere if you just know how to look... between lubin' your tube during episodes of "The X-Files"... In need of a new house to accommodate their sizable family, Osa seeks out an equally sizable house whose cheap pricing doesn't cause pause in Mr. I, but rather stirs up notions that the “something wrong” with these new digs could very well be “something right” for he and his amateur spirit seeking. Sure enough the realty agent is hassled by an unseen force when his paperwork is spread to the four winds and one sheet is tacked to the wall with the Japanese kanji (i.e. alphabetical character representing a word) for "horrific" soaking into it with a rather crimson shade... too bad the letter itself looks less "written in blood" and more "super-imposed with a computer", but such is the failings of strict mechanical Japanese efficiency.
While moving into their new digs, the Imawannaeatapiea fam finds a mysterious old door in one of the rooms that not only seems to be sealed shut by an unholy force, but also *gasp* DOESN'T MATCH THE REST OF THE DECOR! According to papa Osa, the door leads into a storage room, but the construction crew that built the house did such a shoddy job that the door's just structurally fudged and is impossible to open until they can afford to hire someone to fix it. Of course we all know there's more to it than that, especially when Osa's dad-in-law stops by to check out the place, stares at the door in abject terror, then drops dead before he can tell the fam that their new home is a dimensional gateway to Hell. No sooner is the old man put to rest then Osa's son Kiyoshi starts seeing a phantasmal chick with a Ringu 'do (long hair draped over her face) and receives a letter from dearly departed Grandpa to meet him in "The Room That Will Not Open" at 2am... because it's actually "The Room That Will Only Open At 2am"...
Strapping a white thong to his ghostly forehead, Grandpa reveals to Kiyoshi that he was in fact a psychic before his death. He also reveals that all members of the Imawannagetalaida clan are born with such psychic powers, of which Grandpa has awakened in Kiyo, and hence why Kiyo can now chat with the undead. Now Grandpa is leaving it up to Kiyo to solve the mystery of his family's "crisis". 10 to 1 says it’s really just Mr. Weatherby, owner of the haunted amusement park, dressed like the Headless Carnie and using a movie projector image of a ghost to scare off pesky kids (and their dogs) while he works an international drug cartel out of the rundown remains of his failed carnival.
Of course the irony here is that Osama Osamu has married into the Imawannatakeadumpa clan, and therefore the only member of the family interested in the occult is the only one who won't get an organic ghost walkie talkie. As for Yuko (Kiyo's mom), Grandpa says she's too retarded to realize the family has a problem, while Kyoko (Kiyo's sis) has the ability but is probably too skeptical to believe any of it. As such, Kiyoshi's the one in charge of being the family Ghostbuster and keeping everybody safe from spookiness.
The next morning things get underway as Kiyo starts seeing spooks everywhere, clipping their ghostly toenails in the dining room, using half a roll of toilet paper to wipe their ghostly asses in the bathroom, and shaking their ghostly hair covered faces around asking if he thinks they're "pretty". Damn it the dead are irritating. When dead Grandpa is no help in getting rid of Mrs. Cousin It, Kiyo asks Osa about her. Turns out the phantom chick is known as a "Split Mouth Ghost" whose jaw gapes like Kakihara's in Ichi the Killer, and if you tell her she's pretty she'll cling to you for the rest of your miserable life, no doubt asking if her dress makes her look fat or asking if her mother can move in for a few weeks... which turn to months... which turn to years... which turns to a homicide trial and life in prison… you get the idea. Meanwhile, if you say she isn't pretty, she'll just violently slaughter you where you stand. Men, you can all relate on some level, right?
But, thanks to "love advice" from mom, Kiyo gives the dead girl the old "it's not what's on the outside that matters, but what's inside that counts" speech and after a few moments of introspection, she realizes that she's a jerk for trying to make others tell her what she wants to hear. She then vomits up some blood, and introduces herself as Asami. I always prefer a woman to vomit blood before introducing herself to me. Turns out Asami slit her wrists after trying as hard as she could to look pretty for her then boyfriend, only to have him dump her. Because Kiyo made her realize that there's more to existence than a pretty face (like a juicy ass and a smoking set of mandibles), she becomes his secretary as he turns into the Dr. Phil of the after-life, reassuring the dead that whatever their problems were in life, they're not a big deal and it's time to move on to Heaven... or Hell... or reincarnation... or Limbo? I don't know, whatever the individual phantoms believe in, I guess. Meanwhile, Kiyo and Grandpa are still no closer to figuring out the curse of the Imawannadosomeshotsa family's new digs, but it must be something big to create so many dead people in the place...
I've only ever sat through one Asian sitcom, and that was a Korean soap opera called "The Bizarre Bunch". It had nothing to do with ghosts or monsters or aliens or giant robots, but the characters and the situations they got themselves into pulled me in like a housewife watching "Melrose Place". My Evil Dead Bride and I have yet to find a series that was as compelling as "The Bizarre Bunch", but it looks like "The Great Horror Family" could be that next series. The best part? There are actually elements going on here that make it okay for me to watch while still being a horror geek! Yay! Having not seen any of the other episodes yet, after this first episode I figure there's a 90% chance of there being more classic Japanese yokai (ghosts) to make their appearances in future episodes. Will we see a kappa (turtle hermit)? Good chance. Will we see one of those lady ghosts with the super long giraffe necks? I'd bet money. Will we see a cyclopian umbrella hopping around on one-leg? If we don't, I forsee Takashi Shimizu getting his Yokai Guild card revoked and all of his shoes disappearing overnight... Anyway, this is a good first episode to get everyone's interest. We've got Grandpa dying only to return as Kiyo's ghostly sensei in the psychic way, we've got Kiyoshi playing the burdened son who's responsible for saving the entire family from a hidden threat, we've got wacky-yet-creepy undead with personal problems, we've got Osamu as the zany father whose crackpot stories are more on target than anyone knows, and we've got a freaky ghost girl who vomits blood and whose neck snaps when she moves her head! We haven't seen a whole lot out of Yuko or Kyoko yet, but there's still 12 episodes left in the series, so I'm sure they'll come into their own. All in all, I don't think you could really ask for a better start to a TV show! Konichiwa, Bitches!
Moral of the Story: Don't be afraid to ask your mom for relationship help, because it just might save your eternal soul from getting stuck with a clingy phantom girlfriend until the end of time.
