First published on Ready Steady Cut, the postJunji Ito Maniac Season 1 Episode 5 Recap – “Intruder” / “Long Hair in the Attic”
This summary of “Intruder” / “Long Hair in the Attic,” from season one of the Netflix anime anthology Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, contains spoilers.
The clever concept of “Intruder,” from the ninth volume of Junji Ito’s horror series, “Hallucinations,” is horrifying in a subtle, imaginative way. It pairs well with “Long Hair in the Attic,” from “Flesh-Colored Horror,” another high-concept horror short that actually feels like it wants to be about something.
Junji Ito Maniac Season 1 Episode 5 Recap
The movie “Intruder” investigates the idea of duality and extradimensional realms. Oshikiri, who lives alone, hears unusual footsteps in his home. By coincidence, he meets a group of students who are interested in strange events and the paranormal. After inviting them over, they rapidly assume that the home has a doorway to another realm.
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The episode takes a more interesting turn when it introduces a “alternate” version of Oshikiri himself burying corpses in the backyard, implying that perhaps he is concealing evidence of his crimes in his own world in this one. At first, this seems like a good opportunity for played-out haunted-house shenanigans. But as is to be expected, the children finally learn that the bodies he is burying are actually theirs, and they assist him in covering them up so that the issue is hidden from view.
One of the few times in this collection where I believe the episode’s briefness is somewhat detrimental is in this case. Although we only get a nice small short, I wish this idea had been explored deeper.
But “Long Hair in the Attic” is unquestionably superior. Chiemi, a mistreated lady with an uncaring partner, can hear rats in her roof from where she is. She finds a dead rat in her long, black hair as she wakes up, and in a flash, the rat appears to have beheaded her.
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The graphics and how Chiemi’s fate circles back to torture her boyfriend—who starts getting crank calls that sound eerily similar to the sound of her grinding her teeth after she dies—are the film’s great points (or the scraping of rat claws.) A chilling image shows Chiemi’s father passing out from fear after seeing her decapitated head hanging from the rafters by her hair. The hair even takes on a life of its own as it creepily walks the head outside the house.
In the final scene of the show, Chiemi’s boyfriend is strung up and eventually pulled apart by his hair as the audience watches, hears, and smells long, black locks hanging all around the room.
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre Season 1 Episode 5, “Intruder” / “Long Hair in the Attic,” is only available on Netflix.