‘Never After Dark’ Is an Eerie and Unique Ghost Story

There are quite a few familiar elements in Never After Dark. The conspicuously isolated old house. The psychic medium who aches from a tragic past, even as she helps lost souls cross over. The restless spirit whose presence signals imminent danger. These pieces fit together in unexpected ways, resulting in a film that will catch you off guard while delivering quite a few genuine frights. Never After Dark was written and directed by Dave Boyle, who is American but whose films tend to foreground Japanese and Japanese American settings and characters. His latest is very much in that vein, with an all-Japanese cast headed up by Shogun star Moeka Hoshi. Hoshi plays Airi, a freelance exorcist who travels from job to job across Japan in her Volvo station wagon; it’s the closest thing she has to a home. Early in the movie, we learn she’s got a helper lurking beyond the veil: her sister Miku (Kurumi Inagaki). Though Airi is the younger sibling, she’s since aged past Miku, who’s trapped in time as the teenager she was when she died. © Magnolia Pictures Their teasing rapport takes a more serious tone when Airi arrives at her latest gig. The former bed-and-breakfast is now an investment property owned by Teiko (Tae Kimura), who’s terrified but also thrilled by its resident ghost, and her skeptical son, Gunji (Kento Kaku, who’s also one of Never After Dark’s producers). Miku immediately intuits that the place “feels weird,” but Airi refuses to take the bait. It’s just another dead guy, she insists; just another soul who needs help getting “unstuck” en route to the afterlife. Or is it? As Never After Dark gets going, we’re introduced to the specter, a shadowy man with a ghoulishly distorted face and a fixation on one specific upstairs room. It’s a startling sight for viewers further put on edge by the film’s unnerving soundscape and eerie use of shadows, but Airi’s not worried. She does this all the time. It’ll be a “piece of cake” to get rid of him… once she figures out what’s keeping him tethered to the human realm. After Airi spends some time rattling around the house, eating sandwiches, drinking beer, taking naps, blasting music, and dealing with interruptions from Teiko and Gunji—not to mention Miku, who’s still got a bad feeling about what’s to come—we finally see her at work. She’ll only perform her ritual to connect with the dead during the day, she explains, because the spirits have too much power at night. Hence: Never After Dark. The ceremony itself is pleasingly witchy, involving a lock of freshly snipped hair, which explains why Airi’s coif is so lopsided, and a spinning mirror that helps her fall into a trance. Her bravado begins to crack once she’s under her own spell and realizes that there is indeed something extremely odd about this ghost. © Magnolia Pictures The ensuing puzzle that this “traveling Ghostbuster,” as Gunji dubs her, must solve is as grim as they come, and Never After Dark does an exceptional job building tension and subverting expectations as things progress. Airi’s backstory and the emotions she’s been carrying around since her sister’s death also become increasingly important, as do the dynamics of their complicated relationship. You can see why Stephen King himself gave Never After Dark his stamp of approval, as is proudly touted in the movie’s marketing. While it takes inspiration from The Shining with its sinister-hotel-in-the-forest vibes—not to mention the first thing you see is an axe that’s very out of place—it ends up very much carving out its own unforgettable nightmare. Never After Dark opens in theaters starting September 25, with an expansion to follow. Definitely add it to your Halloween watch list. Want more io9 news? Check out the best movies and TV shows to stream this month and all the upcoming sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books that should be on your radar.