Cursed operates with the same aesthetic one finds in a lot of the currently-popular Japanese horror (or J-horror) films: shot on a tight budget (using digital video instead of 35mm film), making use of everyday urban settings but using skilled actors. Shorter in length, it brings a greater return on investment: the bang for the buck is produced more by mood than by visual effects.

Cute (aren't they always?) young Nao has a job at an open-24-hours convenience store - the day shift, after school lets out, thankfully. She likes the job, but is creeped out by the owners - a husband and wife who stare into space a lot. The young guy on the night shift is nice to her, too. A young woman (also attractive) is at the store doing inventory for her home office, who buys up smaller locally-owned stores like this one. Then weird things start to happen. Both of the young women start to see things that cannot possibly be real; and various customers who come in for purchases are murdered under mysterious circumstances. And just who is the guy in the hooded parka?…

Cursed is a decent horror film, considering it's only 80 minutes long, makes use of a small budget, and is shot on DV. There are several visual effects in this film - more than in a similar film I just watched, Tokyo Psycho - and none of them are wasted. In fact, there are several good, creepy moments, and not just BOO moments where something suddenly jumps in front of the camera; the scene with the sledge-hammer-wielding maniac is especially scary. Director Hirayama apparently (is this his first film?) likes to open his movies with a bang, and he certainly does with this one, too: remember to look both ways before crossing the street, kids.

The idea of a haunted convenience store is fairly novel; after all, it makes sense - if a house, why not a quickie mart with rotisserie hotdogs and beer? It adds a new dimension to the sort of modern urban-horror genre: customers make a purchase, which always rings up in strings of like numbers (666 yen, 999.9 yen, etc.) then as they take their purchases away the curse of the title follows them home… with hellish results. And who among us hasn't stumbled into such a store in the small hours of the night, catching a glance at the glazed-eyed clerk, wondering what sort of psychotic thoughts might lurk within him? I don't know about you, but I don't think I would want to confront a vengeful spirit in the beer cooler alone after midnight.