The 2022 J Horror film Best Wishes to All is all about being happy. And if you are not happy? Steal that happy from someone else. Writer/director Yûta Shimotsu delivers a horror film that some have called Lynchian in scope. That is not too far off the mark. However, in terms of texture, David Lynch has never matched the Japanese for surreal storytelling.
Takashi Miike, for instance, dropped Visitor Q back in 2001. Best Wishes to All comes nowhere near the unease and distasteful messages that Miike can deliver in his “underbelly” films. “Q” broaches so many bounds of decency; incest being the most prevalent.
The Story
A nursing student comes home for a familial visit. A break before the all too important exams. She arrives and learns that her grandparents are acting odd. A locked door hides a man who has his eyelids and mouth sewn shut. The student, with the aid of a new friend help the man to escape.
Weirdness ensues.
The Cast
Yoshiko Inuyama is Grandmother.
*Inuyama is the only named character in the film’s IMDb credits. This seems only fair as the film is esoteric, odd and overtly creepy. The Japanese Times helpfully points out that horror films do not have to make sense to be scary. Truer words were never written.*
Kotone Furukawa is Nursing Student/Granddaughter.
Not Ju-on
Best Wishes to All is not Ju-on: The Grudge. There are no vengeful spirits here. Shimotsu instead paints a world of hues and tints that occupy an odd part of Japanese culture.
Villages are, in that country, seemingly frozen in time. The inhabitants, however, are happy with their odd lot. The returning student, does not fit in here. She appears to be scarred from a childhood memory, one that hides in the recesses of her mind.
Grandma and Grandpa, having stayed in their village, are odd, quirky and at times, downright scary.
Disturbing and Scary
Best Wishes to All borrows from writer/director Miike and shows us a world that is scary. This village can be seen as the rural underbelly of Japan. Current events aside, tsunami radiation creating a number of no-man zones are a reality here, the Japanese countryside is disappearing.
The nursing student and her rice farming friend release the captive in her grandparents’ house. This coincides with the arrival of her parents and brother. Similar to the 2019 horror Ready or Not, the Japanese family suffer from a curse. It will kill them all if a replacement is not found.
Best Wishes to All Works
The film works. Perhaps because of its setting. The Japanese, in fact most Asian, cultures offer a skewed version of the world. A place where animals are spirits, both good and bad. Foxes, for example, are inherently bad.
One reviewer alludes to the 2015 offering of M. Night Shyamalan The Visit. This is pretty far from an accurate representation of the film. Apart from the weird behaviour of the grandparents, the two films have nothing in common.
The Verdict
Best Wishes to All earns a solid 4 stars. It entertains as much as it unsettles. The concept, of a young person having disturbing yet vague memories of a traumatic event is nothing new. The film does feel like a nod to those old Takashi Miike films of old and I personally enjoyed it. It is streaming on AMC plus right now.
The Trailer
