Unnamed Film Festival 2025: The Unsolved Love Hotel Murder Case Incident should have been forgotten -

Featuring a straightforward premise, Dave Jackson and Guy’s The Unsolved Love Hotel Murder Case Incident (more lengthy titles, please!) does so much with so few resources. On a meager budget, the creative team scrawls a love letter to Japan’s very long history of paranormal investigation films (e.g., Dark Water and Noroi: The Curse) and conjures up their own buried ghosts. Clocking in at only 70 minutes, the spooky tale seeks to upend the genre but sputters when it comes to summoning scares, jolts, and ghoulish imagery that creeps into the bones.

The story follows two Americans, played by Dave and Guy, touring Japan. When they stop inside a bar, they meet Kuromi (Kuromi Kirishima), the bartender, who shares a story about a young woman who was stabbed and drowned inside a now-abandoned hotel. Frequent imbibing client Noe tells her the tragedy every time she comes in and gets drunk. Kuromi knows it like the back of her hand. She understands Dave and Guy are into horror movies, and them being drunk themselves, they immediately hook into the mystery. After meeting Noe, they learn that it was her best childhood friend who was murdered, allegedly by her dead friend’s then-boyfriend. Sounds simple enough, yeah?

The Unsolved Love Hotel Murder Case Incident spends 40 minutes spinning its wheels with build-up. We really get to know Dave, Guy, and Kuromi as they bond over this potential documentary idea. Dave and Guy are fairly fluent in Japanese, able to communicate with Kuromi pretty well. All three stow their belongings into canvas bags and knapsacks, walking 30 or so minutes through the streets of a nearby town (after taking the train) before discovering a strip of “love hotels.” As Kuromi explains it, they’re hotels for adults and couples to meet up for an hour or more to have sex. Allegedly, Noe’s friend was killed in room 211 at the hands of her boyfriend, who flew into a jealous rage and pulled a knife. He then dragged her body to the bathroom and drowned her in the tub. Perfect set-up for some eeriness.

The group finds the dilapidated hotel and decides to investigate, spending the night on Noe’s friend’s birthday, which also happened to be her death. Their scrutiny of the hallways and various rooms soon leads them to 211, where they set up camp for the evening. They rest up, enjoy some eggs from a vending machine (how cool is that?!), and turn in for the night. From Kuromi disappearing into the all-consuming darkness to various bangs in the boiler room, there are plenty of chilling moments.

But that’s the problem. There are numerous fleeting moments of terrifying thrills that get zapped from the room in the next frame. There’s so much build-up dedicated to the characters and Noe’s friend’s backstory that there’s only about 25 minutes or so inside the hotel. There’s little wiggle room to gear up for the tension and mood establishing. Co-writers and co-directors Dave and Guy have written the characters to be so charming that we care deeply about what happens to them. And the buck stops there. The third act falters to get its footing, with only a garage-bag looking beast a welcome element to elicit screams. Yet, its last-minute introduction sets up for more terror – and the film just sort of ends. There are no death-defying close calls or even missing persons to wrap up the story. Disappointing.

The Unsolved Love Hotel Murder Case Incident doesn’t quite live up to the many films to which it pays homage. It’s a tenuous link in a storied chain of cinematic history. If there were 20 minutes added, then the filmmakers could have had something special in their hands. As it stands, the film is a paper-thin paranormal investigation that never really gets going and lasts just long enough to whet the audience’s appetite for more.