Ten years ago, Ken's (Yuya Yagira) mother died and his father moved him away to a new town where they could start over. His close friends were upset to see him go, but they dealt with it as kids will and they grew up. Now though, Ken has returned home to see his childhood friends. Motoki (Ryo Katsuji) picks him up at the station and the plan is to go back to his place and hang out with Motoki's sister, Rin (Ai Maeda), who is blind. Rin was the most hurt when Ken moved away and she cried for days. While they are in the car and Rin is at the apartment alone, there is a knock on the door. The woman at the door claims to be their childhood friend, Yuki Toyama (Misako Renbutsu). She says that she needs help and begs Rin to let her in. Even though Yuki disappeared when they were kids, Rin still lets her in to try and help. Yuki is soaking wet and cold. As soon as the boys get back, they discuss the Yuki situation and debate on what to do. Ken doesn't even remember the day that Yuki disappeared or what happened. They decide to go see Yuki's family and find out what is going on. Miyu (Erina Mizuno), Yuki's younger sister, lets them in the house when they get there. They want to talk to the mother, but she is completely crazy. She still thinks that Yuki is alive and talks to Yuki's stuffed rabbit backpack as if it were Yuki, so she's no help. While at the house, Yuki manages to fall down the stairs and black out, which means the whole group of childhood friends now need to head to the hospital together with Yuki.
When they get to the hospital, there is not a person in sight. There's no one at the desk or in the hallways. While the guys are off looking for a doctor, Yuki regains consciousness and runs away screaming. This begins the quartet's epic adventure through madness. After the first hallway, they find that they are no longer in the hospital, but are instead inside of the haunted attraction that they were all in as kids on the day Yuki disappeared. Ken is struggling not to remember his past, but it keeps coming back in pieces. As they are all separated slowly, the past and present become intertwined until no one can be sure what is real. The one thing that is for certain - Yuki wants them to remember what happened to her!
As I expected by the trailers, Shock Labyrinth is extremely creepy, both in appearance and sound. The Blu-ray disc contains both the 2D and 3D versions of the film and a DVD of the 2D version. This is the first movie I've seen on my new TV that really made me wish I had a 3D TV. Normally, I don't like the 3D "tricks" as they feel like they are just thrown in there to make it 3D. In Shock Labyrinth, I can tell where the 3D effects are at and I can't wait to see it again in 3D. The Behind the Scenes featurette explains a lot about how they managed to pull off some of the 3D shots and what they do to make them look and feel as natural as possible. The overall outcome is a movie that looks great in 2D and I am guessing even creepier in 3D. The surround sound was also really good! Of course, with it raining outside here while I was watching it, at times, it was hard to tell water dripping on the movie from the rain outside, which means it was really well done. Personally, I prefer the original Japanese, but if you don't want to read subtitles, you can choose to watch the English dub.
I love Japanese horror. As a general rule, they manage to do scary without simply killing people. The overall effects leave you haunted for much longer than a simple horror movie does. While Shock Labyrinth did not have the world's most original plot, there were times that I didn't expect the plot twists and even when I saw the plot coming, I definitely didn't expect how they went about it. If you're looking for a really creepy horror movie that just might keep you awake for a few days, check out Shock Labyrinth today!
