Pray (DVD)

One disembodied hand, leaking pools of gore, lays in the foreground. A ghostly figure lurks in the shadows behind, apparently awaiting new victims. The first thing you might think when you view the DVD box art on this Japanese horror flick is that it must be pretty hard to pray when you've only got one hand. Unfortunately, that premise never pays off in the flick within; but there is still enough sinful horror to keep fans interested.

Fingering familiar territory in the J-horror milieu, Pray (aka, Purei) follows the eerie exploits of a little ghost-girl who wants revenge for her untimely demise. The twist is revealed early on, when a young, drug-addicted couple kidnap a kiddie only to find out that she was killed exactly one year earlier to the day.

What will they do now? They've got their ransom-bait holed up in an abandoned elementary school, but now she is worthless to them… and dangerous! The movie takes on sort of a trapped-in-a-haunted-house feel, but going against tradition, the ghost never appears as anything other than a flesh-and-bones human being.

The cinematography and the music are good, and the direction from Yuichi Sato keeps things changed up quite nicely. The screenplay, written by a female (Tomoko Ogawa), offers a slightly different perspective. And in case you are wondering about the blood-o-meter, there is a supernatural smiting that culminates in plenty of gore.

On the downside, the characters do some stupid things and then do them over and over again; the subtitling is somewhat sketchy in translation; and a few of the people (there's more than just the core three) are a bit too goofy and broadly drawn.

While Pray is not exactly what I'd call an action thriller, the twists and turns do keep on coming and the plot layers are revealed little by little, keeping you just intrigued enough to keep on watching.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson