The Booth (DVD)

Also known as Bûsu, this J-horror import is more a creepy, eerie paranormal mystery than an outright scare flick. While it isn't bloody or particularly frightening — and truly, very little actually happens — The Booth is a compelling chiller that's well worth your time.

Shogo (Ryuta Sato) is a flippant DJ who hosts a Loveline style live radio show. Used to dealing with lightweight, silly subject matter, Shogo doesn't take the strange sounds and noises on the line seriously. He doesn't think it's any big deal when he's told that the makeshift studio he's temporarily working in was the site of another DJ's suicide. Shogo just chuckles when some of the callers start whispering "liar" into his headphones.

But when the ratings shoot through the roof and the station is flooded with more calls, and faxes and emails, the jock is shocked into paranoia and wonder. Wonder about who, or what could be haunting him… and why. You see, Shogo harbors a nasty secret.

With each phone call, by different people but all apparently on the same phantomly page, a little bit of Shogo's past is revealed. There are a few clever and creepy red herrings that, rather than falling by the wayside once they're revealed as such, factor into the story seamlessly.

The cinematography is smart and thankfully always in motion, even when its sedentary subjects are not. The music is effective without being obtrusive or manipulative, and best of all in a dialogue-heavy movie such as this, the actors are all excellent. Sato, ably carrying the entire movie on his shoulders, is never boring even as he juggles the many but limited expressions of initial skepticism, creeping paranoia, and abject fear.

The Booth is quite talky (naturally… it is, after all, centered on a sleepy late-night radio yak-fest) and it does drag here and there, but writer/director Toshihiro Nakamura keeps the story from going stale by intercutting flashbacks and moments of Shogo's fevered imagination.

Special Features:

• Making of The Booth — Rather dull montage scenes of the film being shot.
• Q&A with the star & director — Subtitled, like the movie.
• On-air interview with the filmmakers  — with, what else?, a DJ personality leading the proceedings!
• Tartan's Asian Extreme Movie Trailers

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson