{"id":860541,"date":"2026-09-25T20:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T20:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/860541\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T20:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T20:08:15","slug":"never-after-dark-japanese-medium-movie-dodges-horror-cliches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/860541\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Never After Dark’: Japanese Medium Movie Dodges Horror Clich\u00e9s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t As the title implies, \u201cNever After Dark<\/a>\u201d is a horror film that isn\u2019t stuck in the shadows.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s something very tactile and direct, and a lot of it takes place during the day or at least fairly bright interiors,\u201d writer and director Dave Boyle says. \u201cWe talked a lot about evoking darkness instead of just living in the darkness. Sometimes modern movies can be so extremely dark that there\u2019s something that feels less satisfying about that. I\u2019m not as interested in realistic-looking light as I am in light that\u2019s evocative and dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Magnolia<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film, which opens in theaters on Friday via Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing, is about a medium named Airi (Moeka Hoshi) who is tasked with exorcising a house with more darkness than she\u2019s ever experienced. Any more details ruin surprises, which are integral for Boyle\u2019s engagement in the project.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe genesis came from my love of ghost stories and haunted house tales, but a nagging feeling that they often end the same way, or one of three or four ways,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to come up with something that felt like a comforting retreat of the genre at first, but could end in a different way than they usually do. I was also interested, in a visual, nonexpository way, in coming up with a new belief system that they could show on screen, the tools and processes and beliefs that underpin it, all being something that was new and things that you wouldn\u2019t necessarily explain out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Boyle wanted the answers he delivered to hit hard.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen do you pull the rug out from under people? We\u2019ve all seen a medium arriving at a house that\u2019s haunted and getting the walk-through and sitting down to work,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I felt the specifics of the character and her process were going to be interesting enough to carry you through the more familiar parts of the story, until the turn comes at a point where you\u2019ve been lowered into the warm bath for long enough that a splash of cold water in the face is going to hit all the harder. It\u2019s like feeling your way through it. I like the feeling of being a little lost. It was fun to calibrate that every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Magnolia<\/p>\n

\n\tOne element that also gives the film a unique energy is the American-born Boyle filming it in Japan with local talent speaking Japanese. Boyle\u2019s reverence for the culture came when, on a Mormon mission at 19, he moved to Sydney, Australia and was assigned to learn the language.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI met a lot of Japanese actors and artists who I wanted to continue to foster a collaboration with,\u201d he says. \u201cMy first project actually made in Japan was the [2024] Netflix show \u2018House of Ninjas.\u2019 And that took me there for a very, very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile working on the series, Boyle met Kento Kaku, who became a producer on \u201cDark\u201d as well as one of the actors.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven though I speak Japanese and I\u2019ve worked with Japanese producers, actors, etc., for a long, long time, \u2018House of Ninjas\u2019 was the first time that the writer\u2019s room was all in Japanese,\u201d Boyle says. \u201cI was the only English speaker involved in any capacity. So I tried to have a certain amount of humility about things and proactively ask for everybody\u2019s opinion and make sure that what I was doing felt natural and right. This project was a continuation of that. Kento Kaku is my primary creative partner on both the Netflix show and this. We get in the script together and talk through every line and make sure that what I\u2019m trying to say is getting through and feels authentic in every respect. So there are a lot of long sessions of Kento and me going through it together with a red pen and making sure it felt right.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Magnolia<\/p>\n

\n\tUltimately, Boyle believes his work in \u201cDark\u201d comes from a lineage of filmmakers not working in their native tongue.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHow many of the great auteurs of Hollywood were working in their second language? There\u2019s so many examples \u2014\u00a0people do it every day,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t necessarily feel that what I\u2019m doing is all that unusual. The experience, though, has definitely given me a greater appreciation for people who made the great American classics and were doing it in their second language.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the trailer for \u201cNever After Dark\u201d below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the title implies, \u201cNever After Dark\u201d is a horror film that isn\u2019t stuck in the shadows. \u201cThere\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206,255110],"class_list":["post-860541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-never-after-dark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}