Never After Dark

Bilingual American director Dave Boyle taps into the finely honed rhythms and brooding atmospherics that distinguish contemporary J-horror at its finest with his virtuosically assured sixth feature, his first produced and shot entirely in Japan. Airi (Moeka Hoshi), a mild-mannered psychic medium, travels the countryside peddling her services as a dispeller of unsettled spirits that linger on the earthly plane. Her mettle and mastery are put to the test when she accepts a job at an isolated hotel, where the mother-and-son proprietors enlist Airi’s help to cleanse the building of a hostile supernatural presence that won’t leave its inhabitants in peace, taking the form of a ghoulish, gaping man (Mutsuo Yoshioka) to terrorize the living. Airi is a consummate professional and a skilled clairvoyant, receiving encouragement and advice from her own benevolent ghostly companion, but as she’s pulled deeper into the mystery of the hotel and its secrets, she soon discovers that she may not be prepared for what she’ll find. A Magnolia Pictures release.