Yuta Shimotsu’s unsettling debut unearths the ritual brutality at the heart of generational loyalty
In Yuta Shimotsu’s Best Wishes to All, Kotone Furukawa (Cloud, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) plays an unnamed nursing student who returns to her remote village to visit her elderly grandparents. With the rest of her family delayed due to her little brother’s illness, she’s forced to make the trip alone, allowing her time to reacquaint herself with the picturesque hamlet and her loving relatives. However, it’s not long before their home reminds her of a childhood phobia–an upstairs room, shut off from the rest of the house, where creaking noises emanate at night. The student also observes her grandparents’ increasingly odd behavior, whether inexplicably snorting like pigs at the dining room table over freshly cut pork, staring off into space in the middle of midnight hallways, or sleepwalking into door-crashing runs. Are these signs of dementia, a homegrown conspiracy, or something far more sinister?
The best kinds of horror films take their time revealing just what kind of horror lies at their core. The Exorcist, for example, spends much of its time as a slow-burn medical thriller before diving full deep into possession, as does Hereditary with its exploration of Faustian bargains. Part of the joy of these films is the dreadful thrill of discovery, realizing alongside the characters what’s at stake, what rules must be followed, and how our heroes fit into the terrifying scheme of things.
It’s an element that first drew me to Japanese horror films as an impressionable preteen in the early 2000s, dazzled by the idea that horror films could evoke powerful dread without a central antagonist like Michael Myers or Jason. Although the genre eventually leaned towards prominent yurei ghosts like Ring’s Sadako and Ju-on’s Kayako, many films still drew from the depths of horror in ordinary life, transforming even the simplest scenarios into threats with a perfect blend of menace and impending doom. Influential J-Horror figures like Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Shimizu have quietly fostered the next generation of Japanese Horror. Consequently, it has been intriguing to observe the transformation of Japanese horror beyond the archetypes that once fascinated global audiences, as creatives like Mari Asato, Koji Shiraishi, and Yoshihiro Nakamura forge distinctive visions of horror that resist such broad classification.
Winner of the Scariest Film Award at this year’s Overlook Film Festival, Yuta Shimotsu’s Best Wishes to All marks another exciting leap forward for Japanese horror. Supervised by Ju-on creator Takashi Shimizu, Shimotsu’s feature adaptation of his award-winning short film is a magnetic slow burn, whose true nature remains elusive to its increasingly disturbed audience until a captivating and chilling third act unveils unsettling consequences for the world at large. At its core, Best Wishes to All is a film that doesn’t just induce dread, but also evokes a crucial, timely anger. Rather than drawing from ancient folklore or a detached supernatural force as sources for terror, Shimotsu emphasizes pressing real-world anxieties about generational dynamics and the immeasurable burdens the old normalize for and weaponize against the young.
Running a concise 88 minutes, Shimotsu’s bleak vision is both aggressively and methodically paced. Furukawa’s return to the village and many moments afterward are illuminated with dappled sunshine, evoking a pastoral nostalgia that swiftly turns to decay. Its horrors are not immediately evident as Furukawa takes detours reconnecting with childhood friends or witnessing other quaint village matters, cultivating an illusion of Best Wishes as more of a slice-of-life drama. Those familiar with the pacing of films by Kiyoshi Kurosawa or his contemporary Ryusuke Hamaguchi will be well-prepared for Shimotsu’s Best Wishes, as his moments of silence are often interrupted by jarring instances of surreality. These unexpected breaks feel completely out of place yet entirely organic to the preceding situations, leading us to doubt the normalcy we’ve taken for granted. Ironically, the horror of Best Wishes is altogether relative – playing into an acknowledged phobia of this writer, these scenarios often go unacknowledged by the students’ relatives and other strangers, rendering Furukawa’s bewilderment or terror as isolating as it is relatable.
This alienating approach creates a chameleonic tone that Shimotsu and co-writer Rumi Kakuta can shape into whatever genre directions they choose. Initially, Best Wishes to All resembles a Japanese interpretation of something like The Visit or Get Out, with the perplexing actions of these diabolical grandparents seemingly confined to the claustrophobic house until a dramatic shift propels Best Wishes to All into a gleefully grim and expansive new emotional register. Shimotsu’s scope broadens to capture the essence of something like The Wicker Man without any reliance on religious framing, and the film’s sardonic humor aligns more with Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid rather than the expected Midsommar–but with much more successful outcomes due to its sharp, focused brevity.
However, Best Wishes to All’s opacity and power of suggestion represent both a weakness and a strength. Some emotional beats are quickly glossed over as Shimotsu pushes Furukawa from one emotional extreme to another, and moments of understandable and much-needed action are deliberately delayed for slice-of-life scenes that end up feeling out of place, provoking viewers’ impatience. Your mileage may vary regarding the effectiveness of Shimotsu’s plotting here–as a fan of Kurosawa and Hamaguchi, the palpable frustration only underscored the banal evil of what Furukawa faced; however, I understand how this may irritate other genre fans expecting more exciting J-Horror-esque fare.
While the film’s story delightfully zigzags away from its audience’s expectations, Shimotsu and Kakuta remain firmly connected to the significant societal issues that create fertile ground for their series of scares. Declining birth rates, economic unpredictability, and other societal anxieties in Japan have strained traditional values of filial piety over the past few decades. With Best Wishes, Shimotsu channels these issues into a universal sense of existential, nearly cosmic terror throughout the film, even before Furukawa discovers her relatives’ central secret, one she initially resists but is pressured to take a culpable role in. Furukawa’s relatives and acquaintances downplay her horrified reactions as childlike naïveté toward how the world truly works, further underlining the eroding generational gap at the film’s core as part of a disturbing, society-wide dystopia. There are interesting thoughts on what Shimotsu refers to as the “urban legend concept of The Law of Conservation of Earthly Emotions”–that there is a finite balance between happiness and unhappiness; here, the world Furukawa’s elders have created in their children’s name only makes chattel out of future generations, fueling a disturbing sense lopsided hereditary unease. Over time, the terrors of Best Wishes evolve and recede the longer she and the audience are immersed in this world, leading us to contemplate what we’re willing to accept to achieve and maintain the lives we and our loved ones deserve. It’s less about escaping or changing the world we inhabit, and, even worse, more about accepting our place in the world into which we are born.
This sense of futile acceptance, shaped by the past two decades of Japanese horror, becomes even more energized by Best Wishes’ bitter social relevance. In witnessing how this woman seeks to rebel against the realities of her everyday world, we may find the strength as a society to question the values that have placed its audience in similar circumstances. It’s an excellent utilization of passive acceptance as a clarion call for change, even if Shimotsu doesn’t aim to provide many (if any) answers to the intriguing questions he raises.
Best Wishes to All premieres exclusively on Shudder on June 13, 2025.
