Um, in Poltergeist the house at least had the decency to implode on itself.

76. The Graveyard Apartment – Mariko Koike

Okay, so, I don’t always get the suspensefuls while reading horror novels and just HAVE to finish – but this one I did. The last time I remember staying up later than I should have to finish a book because I got said suspensefuls was when I read My Best Friend’s Exorcism and I finished that well over a year ago. So…yeah, this freaked me right out like the Blair Witch in the 90s. The fact that I’ve experienced one hell of a hateful basement can’t have anything to do with that. Not at all. It wasn’t an apartment basement.

Anyway, one of the things that bothers me and keeps my imagination spinning about Japanese ghost movies I’ve seen- all two, and I’ve also seen their U.S. equivalents- is that the ghosts were the winners. There’s a neverending cycle happening and no character gets out of being freaked out. That does not leave one settled at the end. And the stress that’s depicted here is hellish. So hellish. Also familiar from my basement experience. Also hellish.

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Horace has helped many guinea pigs and me with being frightened of things in basements or otherwise; I really wished he was around while I was reading this.