I didn’t know this film, but I was caught by the beautiful cover of a cheap dvd-version that I saw. I have seen other Japanese films recently and was curious about this one. The director proved to be the same as who made “Ringu 0” which I haven’t seen, but the story was interesting enough to see how this would be.
A “Kakashi” is a scarecrow and is the name of a festival in a small village where the film plays. Kaoru goes to find her missing brother and the trace leeds to a small village called Kozukata. Most inhabitents seem not too happy with Kaoru but she persists in her quest to find her brother. The village is preparing the anual scarecrow festival which proves to be a festival to raise the dead. A scarecrow (or any human figure) is suppose to contain a soul and/or the soul of a dead person. With the festival some will try to regain their loved ones by drawin their souls into a scarecrow. The village seems to be full of ‘living’ scarecrows…
Like “Ringu” a moody horror without the splatter, but with a nice dense and dark atmosphere. Not brilliant, but the Japanese horrors do have something nice about them. Especially on dvd by the way, because a lot of the atmosphere comes from constant subsonic frequencies from your speakers!