Movies
[Book Review] The Mounting Dread Of ‘Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales’ By Yoko Ogawa
Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales was originally published in Japan way back in 1998 (Komoku na shigai, Midara na tomurai) but over the past year, translations of individual stories from Yoko Ogawa’s cryptic anthology have crept into classy American lit mags like Harper’s, Zoetrope: All Story, and Guernica. Ogawa’s highbrow, gothic style may not appeal to stalwart gorehounds, but she’s a critics’ darling, and fans of slow burn supernatural horror may want to sign up for this one. The new English translation by Stephen Snyder, released by Picador, hits American bookstores on January 29. Read on for the full review.
Individually, the stories in Yoko Ogawa’s pseudo-horror anthology don’t add up to much. If you were to flip to a random story and read it out of context, it’s not unlikely that you would feel sadly under-whelmed. But read consecutively, from beginning to end, the anthology takes on a cumulative power.
Admittedly, after reading the first two stories, I was disappointed in their overall lack of impact. But then the third story paid off, which piqued my interest. Soon after, I recognized Ogawa’s subtle-yet-rewarding pattern: the secret to a clue left in one story would be revealed a few stories later…most of the time. Maybe some of the time. In any case, the final pages had me flipping to previous stories on a desperate search for those secrets I may have missed.
Not that the stories are intolerable if read out of order. Some tales, like “Old Mrs. J” and “Lab Coats”, manage to stand alone as eerie, self-contained vignettes. But each story is connected, tangentially, which becomes more important as the anthology progresses. Some stories, seemingly, aren’t connected at all. Others, very deeply. It’s hard to explain. But with each story, the dread mounts, and once that final page is turned, there’s little doubt you’ve just experienced something special.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Skulls
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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