★★★★ out of ★★★★★
🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri
On the night before his wedding to the boss’s daughter, (incredibly handsome) real estate salesman Shunsuke Kawamura (Yûto Nakajima) stumbles drunkenly from a surprise party thrown by his colleagues and falls into an open manhole on the streets of Tokyo.
When he comes to he has a huge, bleeding gash on his leg and no way to escape. As he begins to call friends and family for help, he soon realizes that the chamber may not be where he thinks he is (geographically) and that this may not be a drunken accident but something much more sinister.
Shunsuke decides to take to social media setting up an account posing as a girl trapped in a manhole, thinking people would be more likely to come to the aid of a trapped girl than a grown man, and as the app users come to his aid, the puzzle pieces begin to fall into place. However, he soon realizes that being trapped in a manhole may be the least of his worries.
#Manhole is a wild ride of a film that goes places I would never have expected (and if you see it coming, you’re lying!). It is, for the majority of the film, a one-man show, and while our protagonist is a pretty unlikable guy, the performance by Nakajima is fantastic and keeps you invested in Shunsuke’s escape.
#Manhole has been making the rounds on the festival circuit so keep your eye on The Scariest Things for updates on a wide release.