Nerdly » ‘New Religion’ Blu-ray Review (Third Window Films)

12th Mar2025

‘New Religion’ Blu-ray Review (Third Window Films)

by Alain Elliott

Stars: Kaho Seto, Satoshi Oka, Ryuseigun Saionji | Written and Directed by Keishi Kondo

The late nineties/early 2000s brought a new and highly successful era of Japanese horror (or J-horror as it is often known). It seemed like a new cult classic was released every few months, from Ring to The Eye to Dark Water to The Grudge and many many more. They all had a similar style and felt like nothing that anyone else in the World was making. And although Japanese horror has continued to impress since, it has never quite reached those levels again. Maybe New Religion can change that…

There’s a lot going on in New Religion that I feel I need to explain even when trying to give it a short synopsis. Miyabi has a tragic event occur in her life but tries to moving on, becoming a call girl and getting with a new partner. She then meets a client who wants to take photographs of parts of her body, which connects to her tragic past and her hoping to gain some resolution. That feels like just about enough without spoiling things.

The opening scene is the aforementioned tragic event, and although the camera shows nothing, it is a difficult watch. It does set up the film and Miyabi’s character perfectly. In the role of Miyabi is the inexperienced Kaho Seto but she is fantastic in a very subdued performance. Lots of things about her performance are very subtle but it doesn’t make it any less powerful.

Like many of the J-horror movies of the past, this is a slow-burn of a movie. Not a lot, action-wise, happens. And there’ll be plenty of people that this film just doesn’t work for. But those people are missing out because the slow pace just adds to the feeling of haunting grief that the director manages to portray so well. There’s little bits of fantasy here, a little bit supernatural too and the horror isn’t in your face. It’s more of a depressing kind of horror that runs through the whole film and we don’t really get a happy ending.

Apart from the main story of Miyabi attempting to overcome her tragedy, there are hints at other things. Things as big as society collapsing around her. Other stories come from the relationship she has with her current younger boyfriend, while the photographer client is shown throughout. Everything kind of links but you might feel, like I did, that you don’t get a whole lot of answers by the end of the movie. At least not on first viewing anyway, and this is a movie that demands extra viewings. Questions about what is real and what’s not, who is the photographer, how is Miyabi’s experiences connected to the world around her? I didn’t figure many of these things but it made no difference to the enjoyment I had watching the movie.

This Third Window release comes with a host of extras, including a thirty-minute behind-the-scenes feature, a thirty-minute interview with the director and maybe most interestingly, a spin-off short film that also runs for about thirty minutes. The short ‘Neu Mirrors’ starts from where a certain scene in the original film ends, and it manages to keep the atmosphere of New Religion but also has a slightly more ghosty j-horror-feel to it.

This is director Keishi Kondo’s first movie and it’s a largely impressive one. While plenty of the J-horror influences are clear, they are definitely trying to create a whole new thing too. If downbeat, slow-burn horror movies are your thing, New Religion ticks all the right boxes.