Ghost Channel

As producer of Spirit Sightings, a TV show in Japan that documents the paranormal, Hiroshi Usui needs ratings if he’s to ever to get a shot at Ringu, Part 8.

Taking his camera crew and an exorcist he found in the phone book to a house where a young girl is reputedly possessed by something more nasty than shrimp cakes, the ritual goes oops and actually opens the spiritual screen door wider for naked, Goth-faced evil to crawl on stomachs through.

And it just so happens, as a doctor points out, the airing of the TV show causes the already high suicide rate to spike during that time slot. he blames it on “dead waves,” a way for evil to broadcast itself onto your television. The subliminal influence makes people jump out windows and slash their own throats — and that’s just the commercials.

But in the end, Dead Waves (2005) is just more slow-paced J-horror crud, with no thrills, chills or eating of brains. And the evil entities? I’ve seen scarier people in fetish clubs. Turn off the TV or jump out a window (okay, don’t do that) — just don’t squander your time on this squanderance of time.