A Blood-Soaked Sequel No One Asked For
There’s a special place in cinematic purgatory for sequels that shouldn’t exist — right between The Bye Bye Man 2 and whatever Cats was. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows fits comfortably there, clutching its own intestines and whispering, “Why am I here?”
Based on the cult horror video game series, this 2016 Japanese slasher tries to follow up 2015’s Corpse Party — a film that, while flawed, at least had some pulpy charm. But Book of Shadows feels like the ghost of a better movie haunting a 90-minute cutscene. It’s a confusing, blood-slicked jumble of screaming, stabbing, and spiritual exposition that plays like someone fed a Ouija board through a PlayStation.
If you like your horror nonsensical, your gore inconsistent, and your protagonists incapable of making one (1) logical decision, you’re in luck. Otherwise, you might want to perform a Sachiko Ever After ritual to erase this movie from memory.
The Plot (And We Use That Term Generously)
We open with a group of students performing the “Sachiko Ever After” charm — which, if you recall from the first movie, is basically the supernatural equivalent of chain mail: “Say this cute rhyme, and you’ll be cursed forever!” Predictably, things go south faster than you can say “bad idea, teenagers.” One girl is immediately murdered by a ghost child, setting the tone for a film where dying horribly is the only character development anyone gets.
Cut to Naomi (Rina Ikoma), who’s been hospitalized for half a year because she watched all her friends die the first time around. You’d think this would discourage her from dabbling in occult rituals again. You’d be wrong.
Her friend Ayumi (Nozomi Maeda) decides the best way to “fix things” is to bite a human bone. Yes, that’s right — she just casually gnaws on a corpse like a supernatural Slim Jim. This somehow sends Naomi back in time to the haunted school from the first movie. Because when in doubt, add time travel.
From there, Book of Shadows plays like a “greatest hits” of every bad ghost movie trope imaginable:
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Hallway screaming? Check.
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Flickering lights? Check.
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Evil twins? Double check (literally).
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People running down the same corridor fifteen times because the editor forgot to trim the footage? You bet your cursed charm bracelet.
By the time the new monster, Sachi (the vengeful twin sister of previous ghost queen Sachiko), shows up, you’ll be so lost you’ll wonder if you bit the bone.
Characters: The Dead, the Dumb, and the Disposable
The cast of Book of Shadows is less a group of people and more a lineup of future victims waiting for the camera to remember their names.
Naomi is the reluctant heroine, torn between trauma and bad decision-making. Rina Ikoma does her best to act terrified, but mostly looks like she’s regretting signing the contract.
Ayumi is the self-proclaimed expert in supernatural nonsense, whose solution to every problem is to find another cursed object and poke it. If there’s a cursed mirror, she’s licking it. A haunted book? She’s reading it out loud like it’s karaoke night.
Satoshi, Yoshiki, and Yuka all return from the first film, but they’re basically glorified cameos — cannon fodder to remind you that yes, this is technically a sequel. Their main function is to die dramatically and give Naomi something to sob over while the camera pans to the ceiling for no reason.
And then there’s Yuuya, who starts out as a brooding survivor and ends up as a full-blown maniac wielding a knife and a chemistry set. He’s the kind of villain who explains his evil plan mid-stabbing, which is as inefficient as it is entertaining.
Finally, Sachi, the “new” ghostly antagonist, is introduced as Sachiko’s twin sister, which feels like the screenwriters ran out of ideas and said, “What if we just… doubled it?” She’s supposed to be terrifying, but mostly looks like she’s late for a Sadako vs. Kayako audition.
The Direction: Less “Haunted” and More “Haphazard”
Director Masafumi Yamada (whose previous work includes the first Corpse Party film) seems to have traded atmosphere for incoherence. Gone is the claustrophobic dread of the original; in its place is a visual migraine of shaky camera work, random close-ups, and editing that could give a caffeinated squirrel a seizure.
The lighting shifts between “overexposed YouTube vlog” and “found footage in a sewer.” The haunted school, once eerie, now just looks like an abandoned set left over from Battle Royale Jr. The gore, when it comes, is sporadic and weirdly sterile — you’ll see gallons of blood, but it never feels particularly shocking. It’s horror by checklist, not design.
Even the scares are edited to death. Every time a ghost appears, we get three quick cuts, a musical sting loud enough to summon tinnitus, and a flash of CGI blood that looks like rejected footage from Goosebumps (2015).
The Script: A Book of Nonsensical Spells
It’s rare for a horror movie to feel both overexplained and incomprehensible, but Book of Shadows pulls it off.
There are entire scenes of characters standing around, delivering exposition like bad tour guides:
“Sachi is the resentful twin sister of Sachiko, who ascended after her bone was bitten, which means the Book of Shadows must be opened by biting another bone, but not on Tuesdays.”
By the third “as you know” conversation, you’ll be rooting for the ghosts.
The dialogue tries for gravitas but mostly lands somewhere between anime dub awkwardness and soap opera confusion. Characters scream each other’s names as if volume alone could substitute for emotion. (“NAOMI!” “AYUMI!” “SACHIKO!”) It’s like watching a telenovela where everyone’s covered in ketchup.
Special Effects: Practical Horror Meets PowerPoint
If you thought the blood fountains of Tokyo Gore Police were over the top, Book of Shadows says, “Hold my bone fragment.” The film gleefully tosses fake blood at every surface, including the camera lens, yet somehow still looks cheap.
The CGI, meanwhile, is pure bargain bin—Sachi’s ghostly tendrils wiggle across the screen like they were drawn on Microsoft Paint. When the “disgusting creature made of corpses” appears in the final scene, it’s hard to tell if you’re looking at a monster or a melted piñata.
The sound design doesn’t help either. Every scare is punctuated by a loud violin shriek or a random whisper that sounds suspiciously like someone sighing into a microphone. It’s less “eerie” and more “haunted karaoke bar.”
The Ending: Chaos, Screaming, and a Paper-Thin Tear in Logic
After ninety minutes of carnage and confusion, Naomi opens the titular Book of Shadows and wishes for everyone to live again — because apparently it’s that easy. But instead of resurrecting her friends, she summons a giant blob made of corpses, which might also be her friends, or her guilt, or maybe just a metaphor for the script.
The book then rips itself apart, Naomi screams, and the screen fades to black — not because the story’s concluded, but because the editor probably fainted. It’s the kind of ending that says, “We didn’t know how to finish this, so here’s a loud noise and an existential crisis.”
Final Thoughts: Cursed Objects Deserve Better PR
Corpse Party: Book of Shadows is what happens when a decent horror premise gets exorcised of coherence. It’s not scary enough to be effective, not campy enough to be fun, and not self-aware enough to know it’s ridiculous. It takes the chaotic energy of the first film and replaces it with plot holes, bad pacing, and the cinematic equivalent of a haunted group project.
Rina Ikoma and the rest of the cast do what they can, but it’s hard to sell fear when even the ghosts look confused about their motivations. The only truly frightening thing about this movie is how confidently it teases another sequel.
If you’re a diehard fan of the games, maybe it’s worth one ironic watch. Otherwise, just play the original Corpse Partygame — it’s scarier, smarter, and significantly less likely to make you question your life choices.
Grade: D+
Recommended for: horror masochists, completionists, and people who think “biting bones to time travel” sounds like a solid life plan.
