‘The Mouths’ Is Horror ‘Rashomon’ That’s Rich In Psychological Scares & Suffocating Curses [Fantasia Review]

“Looks like we’re all gonna get cursed!”

Takashi Shimizu has been a formative name in Japanese horror for over two decades, and the rare case of a filmmaker who also directed his American remakes. Takashi Shimizu, first and foremost, knows how to tell a ghost story. However, his latest film, The Mouths: A Survey on the Mouth, is a masterpiece of misdirection that explores grander themes of regret, jealousy, the nature of storytelling, and how urban legends only gain power if we give them to them. The Mouths is among Shimizu’s best work and a strong return to form for the Ju-on: The Grudge director.

The Mouths is a story about storytelling. It unpacks a local urban legend – The Cursed Tree – where a woman’s ghost is said to appear if she’s summoned. When a group of friends indulge in this courage test, one of them disappears and the rest are left to wrestle with guilt and an intensifying curse that begins to wear them all down. The Mouths takes this simple premise and explores it through an inventive lens that turns it into an exercise in point of view. The film is divided into several different accounts of what happened on this fated day, with the audience left to determine where the truth lies. It’s a structure that’s not unlike what Shimizu has implemented in some of his other films, Ju-on included, yet this time it’s an opportunity to obfuscate the story through unreliable narrators.

This leads to The Mouths feeling like a horror Rashomon, where interconnected stories all break down the same paranormal phenomenon, with each new tale giving this curse greater strength. The Mouths breaks away from what initially feels like a telegraphed pattern and veers in a different direction. It cleverly subverts expectations by chronicling different groups of people who visited The Cursed Tree and examining their contrasting experiences, rather than breaking down the different perspectives within a single group. 

These separate encounters evolve into a labyrinthine horror story. Each group has a distinct dynamic that reflects different forms of relationships, some of which are more toxic than others, which also keeps the film feeling fresh as it retreads the same general idea several times over. These overlapping narratives also switch between several different visual styles. There’s a particularly strong segment that’s told as handheld found-footage that heightens the horror even further. It’s a genuinely frightening segment that’s on par with Shimizu’s best work. keeps this tension going and crafts really creative, consistent, and effective scares.