Directed and written by Yosuke Goto, Bldg. N is based on actual events that happened in a Gifu Prefecture apartment complex in 2000.
Shiori (Minori Hagiwara) is a college student that has a fear of death known as thanatophobia which keeps her from sleeping but also haunts her every waking moment. To try and escape her constant depression, she joins her ex-boyfriend Keita (Yuki Kura) and his current girlfriend Maho (Kasumi Yamaya) to film a rural housing plan where rumors of ghostly activities have been reported.
The three college students lie and explain that they are looking for a place to live. Invited to a welcome party, they learn that the building’s residents live with ghosts quite literally. As their leader Kanako (Mariko Tsutsui) explains, that means trying to understand them. Then someone runs over a rail and kills themself.
This would be the time to leave.
So you end up with a death cult meeting up with a girl whose fear of death leads her to be irrational about everything. While she’s also quite tiny, she’s also a killing machine. And while the film eventually becomes a more standard J-horror movie than the opening may promise and its characters make some of the dumbest decisions ever, at least Hagiwara is great as the lead and it looks interesting.
I watched this film as part of The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN). You can learn more at their official site.
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