J-Horror Bloat featuring Gotham star Ben McKenzie and Beyond Skyline actress Bojana Novakovic has finished up its principal photography in Japan, Bloody Disgusting learned today.
In the film…
“The story unfolds around a mom (Novakovich) and two sons who are vacationing in Japan while the father of the family (McKenzie), a military officer, is away stationed in Turkey. During their stay outside Tokyo, their younger son almost drowns in a lake. Soon after the accident, the parents realize that something is wrong with their boy.”
The filming locations included Tokyo, featuring one of its most recognizable sights, Shibuya Crossing, as well as Yamanashi, known for the iconic Mount Fuji. According to the tradition with all Japanese horror films, Bloat shooting began with a blessing at a local temple, explains the press release.
Bloat is written and directed by Tokyo-based horror filmmaker Pablo Absento. The new horror will feature Bon Koizumi, great-grandson of the legendary Japanese folklorist and horror story collector Lafcadio Hearn and the director of his museum. The characters of the film will eventually come to him searching for answers about the mysterious Japanese folklore demons. His great-grandfather Hearn became the adopted father of the Kaidan (ghost story) and the first foreigner to retell these folktales for a Western audience. Classic Japanese ghost stories and horror tales like The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi and Yuki-Onna are known thanks to his retellings.
Bloat is the second co-production of the visualist filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov’s production banner Bazelevs (Unfriended, Searching, Profile) and French production and sales house Pulsar Content (The Deep House). Their inaugural partnership, the sci-fi thriller Resurrected, starring The Vigil actor Dave Davis and directed by Egor Baranov, was presented to the buyers at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month.
Both films adopt Bekmambetov’s signature screenlife filmmaking method, in which the story unfolds on the screens of devices used by the movie characters. The first screenlife release, Unfriended, was picked up by Universal and grossed $65 million worldwide in 2015. It was followed by Searching, starring Debra Messing and John Cho, which was acquired by Sony Pictures and raked in $75 million. Bekmambetov was a producer of both films, which were shot for under $1 million.
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