a review of 怪谈

HOOPTOBER OCHO NIGHT SIX: It's tempting to just call this one an anthology of four short stories and review each one as a discrete episode, but I think there's something to how these are juxtaposed within the larger 3-hour whole. It's one of those long movies that feels long, although I was never bored by the repetition of elements, both inside of the individual tales and across them. There's a recurring element of men being haunted by good fortune that comes as the aftermath (or direct result) of the suffering of others, which pays off in slightly different ways over the course of the film. The final story feels like a deliberate departure, in that it almost steps outside of the frame of the film to highlight how these are all stories being told by someone with their own purposes in the telling. I think I'm going to enjoy revisiting this one sometime soon.