21 Days of Spooky: Presentiment (Dark Tales of Japan segment, 2004)

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21 Days of Spooky is not about pop culture that sets out to fright you with brain-eating, viscerae-hanging, slash-killing scenes, but with thoughts that linger and persist on your life long after you've watched them. Or are just downright creepy. Tonight's spooky: Dark Tales of Japan's "Presentiment". Some spoilers ahead.

What's it about?: A man steals valuable information from his company and sets out to escape and meet with his lover at the train station. But he ends up getting stuck in an elevator with three people who seem to have no rush in leaving.

Dark Tales of Japan is an interesting TV anthology written and directed by some of Japan's biggest names in scary pop culture. Like all anthologies, it has its hits and misses (Takashi Shimizu's "Blonde Kwaidan" is possibly the most inessential segment to have ever anthologied), but thankfully it closes with Masayuki Ochiai's "Presentiment", a story of pure ol' desperation. The desperation of having committed a crime and trying to not being caught red-handed. The desperation of losing the woman you love because of said crime. The desperation of being stuck in a damn elevator as you flee from the company you just stole from.

Shigenori Fukawa (Teruyuki Kagawa, who will reappear on this feature's last entry) seems to have committed the most masterful act of embezzlement ever, and sets out to escape, not only to freedom and incredible wealth, but also to the arms of his suicidal lover, who calls him to threaten suicide if he doesn't show up at the train station at 7:45. But that's okay, he has the discs, the money, and he's on his way to live a luxurious life fuck knows where with the suicidal lady. Except that he decides to take the elevator instead of the stairs and, being an elevator and all, the rusty machine gets stuck.

The already sweaty and super hyped up man starts to crumble due to this. I mean, what is he gonna do, call the police and tell them he needs to get out ASAP because he has to run away with all his company's money? Tell the fuzz he has to be at the train station at a certain hour because the woman who isn't his wife is gonna kill herself if he doesn't show up with the cash he stole? So many conundrums. Oh, and did I tell you that, in the elevator, there's also three more people looking at him super calmed? An elderly couple and a beautiful young lady just stare, relaxed, watching Fukawa being more desperate by the second.

Our trained eyes can quickly tell these three observers are most likely not from this plane of existence, especially because their outfits aren't very contemporary, they keep talking in the past tense, definitely don't look like the kind of folks who'd ever be in a financial building, and don't seem to care if they get stuck in an elevator or a whale's stomach. But what do they want with Fukawa? Our protagonist is just as puzzled as we are, especially because he truly believes they are people of flesh and bone that inexplicably have no rush... or they are just not in a hurry because they haven't committed a crime?

Old people are old people after all, and immediately start chatting with Fukawa. As they do, they keep revealing vague info about themselves, but most importantly they churn out info about Fukawa himself. He tries using his phone for signal, and then's when the old lady asks him about his daughter, the daughter that he will abandon once he flees with his lover at he train station. His suitcase splits open and all the incriminating evidence plops out, thus propping up the question of what's all that stuff in the suitcase. Their questions seem to work exclusively to ramp Fukawa's, and ours, anxiety.

You know that feeling when you fuck up, and suddenly everyone seems to be looking at you, no matter where you go or what you do? It's obviously your conscience being a dick to you, wanting you to fix said fuck up, but you never know if that's the case or maybe someone knows about your fuck up. Your pulse accelerates, you start panicking, you're more prone to keep fucking up, and you start questioning everything you've ever done. All these feelings are experienced by Fukawa in the brief runtime of this segment.

The spookiness of it all comes with the fact that you don't know what the strangers want, either. They just talk, watch, wait. They extract info, but give little in return. Are they angry, do they have a connection to Fukawa? To understand it all, you'll have to watch the full segment... if you dare.

Tomorrow: Na Hong-jin's The Wailing reminds you that you should always listen to mysterious ladies.