Based on my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject, when I think of the citizens of Japan, I think of a very driven people who strive to succeed in both school and work. (And I try not to think of all of the weird things which show up in anime.) However, I'm not sure how anyone in Japan can get anything done with all of the vengeful spirits running around over there. If the movies are to be believed, Japan is simply overflowing with spirits of the deceased who want revenge on the living. This must make getting through the day quite a challenge. And where Director Takashi Shimizu is concerned, holes in time are a big problem as well. All of these things come into play in Shock Labyrinth.

Shock Labyrinth opens with the reunion of three childhood friends. Having not seen one another in years, Ken (Yuya Yagira) is picked up by Motoko (Ryo Katsuji) and they head on their way to see Motoko's girlfriend, Rin (Ai Maeda), who is blind. Meanwhile, Rin is visited by Yuki (Misako Renbutsu), who is also a childhood friend. However, Yuki has been missing for a decade. Motoko and Ken arrive and aren't sure what to make of this woman who claims to be Yuki. So, they take her home, where they see Yuki's sister, Myiu (Erina Mizuno). Yuki falls ill and they decide to take her to a nearby hospital. However, when they arrive, they find the hospital to be deserted. As they begin to explore it, the hospital suddenly transforms into an amusement park haunted house -- and not just any haunted house. This is the a haunted house where Yuki disappeared all those years before. Ken, Motoko, Rin, and Myiu now find themselves trapped in its maze-like corridors as they realize that the past is about to repeat itself.

I learned a long time ago to never read the back of a home video box for two reasons. First of all, it will make promises which it can't keep, often using words like "hilarious" or "terrifying". Secondly, the synopsis can sometimes give too much away. However, when I'm deciding what movies to review I occasionally read more about them and I'm not sure if I'm glad I did so with Shock Labyrinth. The box describes the story which is presented in the movie. However, the way in which the story is told in the film is very closed-off at the outset, and it takes a while for the plot to develop. I tried to write the above synopsis to reflect the way in which the story unfolds in the movie, and I still feel like I jumped ahead too much. Director Takashi Shimizu and Writer Daisuke Hosaka are in no rush to get to the point, and this will certainly frustrate some viewers. Who are these people? What are they talking about? These early scenes are combined with flashbacks which depict moments from the past, but don't explain them.

Shimizu takes all of these elements and creates a concoction which walks a fine line between being brilliant and being a huge mess. In essence, Shock Labyrinth plays like a combination of Ju-on and A Nightmare on Elm Street, as a tragic event from the past has come back to haunt a group of people and placed them in a place where the laws of time and space no longer apply. As noted above, the story rolls out at a leisurely pace and the bits and pieces we get about the past are interesting. However, we also get shot after shot of the characters running through the haunted house, which grows tiresome very quickly. Ironically, the movie has a theme about tragic events repeating themselves over and over, but that doesn't mean that we want to see the same shot over and over. The big plot twist is interesting, but the finale is muddled. Shock Labyrinth takes what is ultimately a fairly straight-forward story and makes it complicated in an attempt to make it unique. However, this only makes things needlessly perplexing, and I can see some audience members getting just as lost as the characters. If you've seen any of Shimizu's past films, then you know that linear storytelling holds no interest for him, but his other movies have been much more layered than this. Having said that, Shimizu has not lost his ability to create creepy visuals and there are some nice "jump" scares and some genuinely unnerving shots, including one which echoes a classic from Ju-on 2.

Shock Labyrinth offers more mannequins per minute than most movies on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Well Go USA. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is sharp and clear, showing only minor grain at times and no overt defects from the source material. The colors look very good, as primary colors dominate certain scenes, and the image is never overly dark or bright. The flashback scenes go intentionally soft (annoyingly so), but the other shots remain stable. The level of detail is good, as we can make out textures on objects, and the depth is nicely done, even in the 2D version. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.7 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. This Japanese track delivers nice stereo and surround effects, which make great use of the space within the haunted house to create the illusion that things are happening all around us. Off-screen sounds are well-represented and the subwoofer effects add to the "jump" scares. The sound is detailed, most notably when it's raining. However, I did have an issue with the English subtitles on this Disc. Rin writes something on the wall, something which is shown many times, and we never learn what it says.

The Shock Labyrinth Blu-ray Disc contains a few extras. A series of "Interviews" which run 27 minutes in total focus on Director Takashi Shimizu (in a variety of locations, including a giant ferris wheel), and actors Yuya Yagira, Ryo Katsuji, Ai Maeda, Erina Muzino, and Misako Renbutsu. Shimizu talks about the specific approach which must be taken when shooting a 3-D movie and the importance of the film's locations. The actors talk about their characters and the production. "Behind the Scenes" (10 minutes) takes us on the set to see the shooting conditions inside the haunted house set, we get comments about the 3-D camera from Cinematographer Tsukasa Tanabe, and we see candid footage of the cast on the set. There's a nice amount of footage here showing the cast and crew at work. "Press Conference" (3 minutes) from June, 2009, shows Shimizu and the cast at a ceremony in the amusement park. The final extra is the ORIGINAL TRAILER for the film.