Pawn of Shadows

「祟りじゃ！」

『八つ墓村』

 

 "It's the curse!"

"The Village of the Eight Graves" 

Funny how the Chiikawa film ended up a better mystery film than this one...

Tatsuya, a young man struggling to find work in Tokyo, is informed by the police his mother died in what appears to have been a suicide. Tatsuya had been given up for adoption by his birth mother when he was young, and he never forgave her, but he reluctantly agrees to travel to Okayama Prefecture to identify his mother's remains. On a whim, he decides to travel the village where she died: the Village of Eight Graves. On his way there, he's "found" by private detective Kindachi Kousuke, who was hired to locate Tatsuya by the Tajimi family, the wealthiest family of the small, isolated mountain community. It turns out Tatsuya is the illegitimate son of Tajimi Youzou, the former family head, who disappeared twenty years ago.... after he went on a mad killing spree killing many of the villagers. Tatsuya's half-brother Hisaya is the family head in name, but his deteriorating health suggest he might not even outlive his twin great-grandmothers Kotake and Koume, who want to keep the family fortune within the bloodline: they fear that if Hisaya dies, Hisaya's cousins Shintarou and Noriko of the branch family will take everything. Therefore, they'd prefer Tatsuya, who carries Youzou's blood, to become the new Tajimi heir. Tatsuya stays a few days in the village, where he and Kindaichi witness a local kagura, a Shinto ritual ceremonial dance, about the goddess Amaterasu who feasts with seven animals who die one after another. Tatsuya is seen as an enemy by most of the villagers, as many still carry the trauma of the horrific mass murders Youzou committed and things immediately turn for the worse when one morning, someone is found murdered in front of the Tajimi manor. Villagers start to accuse Tatsuya, the newcomer in the village, and while the police is investigating the case, more people connected to the Tajimi clan are getting murdered. Who is the murderer and what is the mystery behind the name of this odd village? That is the driving question in the 2026 film Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of The Eight Graves"), a brand-new film adaptation of the same-titled Yokomizo Seishi novel.

And I have to specify it's a brand-new adaptation, because man, Yatsu Haka Mura has been adapted into a lot of media. A few years ago, I wrote a post on the 1968 manga adaptation of the 1949-1951 book and its relevance to Kindaichi Kousuke popularity in general. The manga was a landmark release: the popularity of this specific adaptation inspired publisher Kadokawa to release mass-market paperbacks of Yokomizo Seishi's novels starring the detective Kindaichi Kousuke in the late 60s-early 70s and to top off the "Yokomizo Boom" (Yokomizo Hype) came the 1976 film Inugamike no Ichizoku (The Inugami Clan), the very first film released by the newly established Kadokawa Studios, which was an adaptation of the same-titled Yokomizo book. Since then, we have seen countless of Kindaichi Kousuke adaptations, and many titles have seen multiple adaptations, but still, Yatsu Haka Mura is the king when it comes to how often it's been brought on screen. If we include the 2026 version (which released last week in theatres) there have been 4 theatrical releases and a whopping 7 different adaptations for television, and then there are the stage plays (yes, multiple), the radio dramas (yes, multiple), the manga adaptations (yes, multiple), the game (just the one...) and there's probably more.

And it is in this context, we should look at the 2026 film version. It is directed by Shimizu Takashi, a filmmaker best known for the Ju-On/The Grudge horror films. In fact, most of the titles on his resume are (occult) horror titles, so that should already give you an idea of the direction the 2026 version of Yatsu Haka Mura goes. For yes, this is not actually a mystery film, it is a horror film.

Of course, the original novel was already quite an anomoly within the series. It is not structured like a conventional mystery novel, as the main narrative mixes horror with adventure, being mainly the tale of Tatsuya as he slowly uncovers a secret that had been kept by his biological family, explores an underground cavern system, goes treasure-hunting and also slowly learns about a curse laid upon the Tajimi family by eight samurai warriors who were betrayed by, among others, his Tajimi ancestor. A lot of adaptations do lean on the scarier sides of this tale. The 1977 version, directed by Nomura Yoshitarou and arguably the best-known version of the tale (a lot of the parodies we see of Yatsu Haka Mura are actually parodies of the 1977 film) takes quite a lot of freedoms with the mystery plot and leans hard on the supernatural horror residing in the plot (especially as the film approaches the climax). So I don't think a horror-inclined Yatsu Haka Mura is bad per se.

The 2026 film is not ashamed to let you know it takes a lot of inspiration from the 1977 version, with some scenes being direct homages, so it is hard not to compare the two and in a direct comparison, I have to say the 1977 film wins easily in my view, and it comes down to a fundamental difference: the 1977, while incorporating occult horror themes, still follows the format and "rules" of a mystery story. The 2026, intentionally, gets rid of basically all of the mystery plot and is basically 95% a horror film, with the remaining 5% just using a mystery aesthetic. The novel uses suggestions of occult and supernatural themes (the curse) to explain the murders, but provides a non-supernatural, coherent answer at the end. The 1977 film provides a non-supernatural, coherent answer to the murders, but also provides a supernatural/occult twist to that answer. The 2026 provides murders, and then provides an answer that only works in a horror context. They do things in differing degrees, and while I think the 1977 manages to strike a very admirable balance with a rudimentary murder mystery that allows for some occult horror going on in a natural manner, the 2026 film simply does not even pretend to be a detective film, exemplified when near the end, Kindaichi basically cries out loud he's not the right detective for this case! 

However, I do like the horror direction of the 1977 edition much better than the 2026 version. Perhaps it's because regulations are different now, but even though the 1977 version is, by design, not trying to be a horror film as aggresively as the 2026 film, I think the overall vibe, and most of the specific scenes of the 1977 edition are a lot creepier than what we see in 2026. So despite 2026 aiming to be more of a horror film than the 1977 edition, I don't think it actually manages to surpass the 1977 edition in that aspect, while the 1977 at the same time still manages to bring a more coherent mystery plot. Director Shimizu has directed three occult horror films set in villages, all following the same title format of "Something Something" Village, and while I have not seen any of them, I have seen many comments on social media that see Yatsu Haka Mura as the fourth entry in that series, rather than a "Kindaichi Kousuke film", so if you go in what those expectations, you'll probably like it better than I do. The depiction of the Tajimi Youzou massacre is as scary as always though, and there is a mirrored scene that is surprisingly bone-chilling. 

The 2026 film greatly simplifies the novel's mystery plot, features a downsized cast of characters (though it does include Shintarou and Noriko, who are often exluded in adaptations!) and cuts down on the murders and focuses more on the mystery of the village curse that haunts the Tajimi family. Despite the plot being simplified, it still manages to introduce a few minor plot holes that occur because the story pretends to be a mystery story at first only to go full in on the occult, leaving quite a few things unaddressed (and if you know the original story, you'll have even more questions because some major reveals in the book just don't happen here...).The kagura dance ritual is an original aspect of this film to the story and on its own, it's actually a pretty cool addition, adding a new angle to Tatsuya and Kindaichi slowly learn about the village history and why it is exactly called the Village of Eight Graves. However, for people who already know the original story, this part might feel like unncessary padding: I personally liked it though, especially as it allows for a completely new role of the villagers in this version of the story, one that hasn't really been explored in other adaptations in this way. The 2026 film being set in the present however does raise some questions: Why would only villagers be aware of the massacre Tajimi Youzou committed just twenty years ago, as you can bet it would be all over the news and in more recent years, explored in social media. And whereas the original novel (and a lot of the original Kindaichi Kousuke novels) manage to present a convincing 'isolated village with local customs/beliefs' setting due to its period setting, it's a harder to believe so many villagers would still follow the old "isolated village mentality" in 2026. On the other hand, updating the "It's the curse!"-shouting nun of the original to a somewhat disturbed woman wearing child-like frilly fashion was brilliant!

One thing I liked a lot about the film though is kabuki actor Onoe Matsuya as Kindaichi. His Kindaichi might be quite different from what you'd usually expect Kindaichi to be, but he works fantastic in the context, in a film that takes a lot of cues from the 1977 edition. For Onoe's Kindaichi feels like an extension of Atsumi Kiyoshi's Kindaichi in the 1977 film. Because the mystery plot of the novel is greatly simplified/changed for this film, Kindaichi doesn't get to do a lot of mystery-solving (he does get to break and enter...) and ultimately, he is in way in over his head because of the nature of the case, but I still like this specific portrayal.

So by this point, it's clear I'm not a huge fan of the 2026 film adaptation of Yatsu Haka Mura. In theory, I don't mind it being deliberatly a horror take on the story: there have been countless of adaptations of the novel by now, we don't need another one that does what most of the others have already done. However, I do feel the strongest points of this film are ultimately better done in the better-known 1977 film version, so it leaves this 2026 in a weird spot, where it tries not to be mystery and is ostensibly pure horror, but it still gets outdone in that respect, in my opinion, by the 1977 version which at least still had a a more coherent mystery plot. If you go the theaters expecting just a 'horror film set in an isolated village' without a greater context, or when seen in the context of Shimizu's other films, then it might be more interesting. This 2026 Yatsu Haka Mura is obviously not the first adaptation of the novel you should see, but I guess if you have already seen a few and want something different, it might be worth a try, especially if you're more into horror than I am.

Original Japanese title(s): 『八つ墓村』