Never After Dark review – ghostbuster-for-hire meets her match in Japanese exorcism horror

Shogun’s Moeka Hoshi stars as a travelling caster-out of ghosts who confronts a wounded and recalcitrant spirit in this inventive chiller

If you watched this Japanese-language ghost-story horror thriller cold, you might be a little surprised that the credits reveal that the director is one Dave Boyle – and not someone from Japan, so steeped is it in Japanese lore and culture. It turns out that Boyle has been interested in Japan for a long time, and even wrote, directed and starred in the 2006 feature film Big Dreams Little Tokyo, about an American sharing a flat with an aspiring sumo wrestler.

More recently, Boyle was a key director-producer for the Netflix series House of Ninjas, and Never After Dark seems to have evolved as a spun-off side hustle between Boyle and Ninjas star Kento Kaku, who produced it and takes a supporting role.

That all goes a little way to explain how this ends up feeling like a larky, low-stakes, one-for-funsies exercise – inventive and full of charm even if the scares are sort-of predictable.

Shogun’s Moeka Hoshi stars as Airi, a young woman who looks like a hipster with her torn jeans and raggedy haircut and who travels the country in her Volvo as an itinerant ghostbuster for hire. The ghost of Airi’s dead older sister Miku (Kurumi Inagaki) is always by her side but is only visible in mirrors (as per folklore), and is available to give advice about imminent danger and vibes in the spirit world.