Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)

My October Horror Movie Challenge lists are normally packed with Japanese horror, but this year has been a bit light on it. While I reviewed A Page of Madness a couple of weeks ago, I had failed to pick any contemporary Japanese films. After skimming a couple of glowing reviews for Best Wishes to All, however, I decided to bump Evil Dead Trap in its favour. Apart from anything else, I suspect I may actually have actually seen Evil Dead Trap decades ago and just forgotten about it.

This is another film where I’ve gone in largely blind, and I’m glad I did. While I don’t think knowing the plot would have ruined the experience, there are enough surprising moments of weirdness that they kept me off-balance throughout. I would recommend just watching this film without learning anything more.

Best Wishes to All is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Synopsis

While on a family holiday in the countryside, a young girl glimpses something awful in the back room of her grandparents’ house, but doesn’t understand what it was. This haunts her for years afterwards. Now, as an adult, she heads back for another visit.

Even before she makes any big discoveries, the woman notices all sorts of strange behaviour around the house. She suspects her grandparents may be developing dementia, but the truth turns out to be so much stranger.

As she learns the dark secret at the heart of her family’s happiness, the woman realises the true horror is just how willing everyone else is to accept it. Will she be forced to do the same or is there some way out of this moral quagmire?

General Thoughts

While Best Wishes to All is a deeply weird film, it’s not the kind of weirdness that relies on exaggeration or stylistic tricks. While the film grows intense at moments where the protagonist experiences something especially shocking, most of the uncanny moments are presented in an utterly matter-of-fact way. This perfectly echoes how everyone in this community has embraced the horrors underlying their way of life and just see it all as normal.

It wasn’t until I started writing this review and checked the credits that I realised we never learn what any of the characters are called. No one addresses anyone else by name. The subliminal effect of this just adds to the overall sense of wrongness.

With slightly different framing, Best Wishes to All might have been folk horror. The way it centres on a small community with a terrible secret fits within the genre perfectly. The modern setting and dispassionate presentation turn it into something different, however. That disconnection from any recognisable subgenre of horror is one of the film’s greatest strengths.

I imagine Best Wishes to All would reward a second viewing. Just checking the opening scenes while writing this review, there is so much foreshadowing that only makes total sense when you know the larger context. Even reading back over the notes I took while watching had me marvelling as I realised what these scenes really meant.

Verdict

Best Wishes to All put me in mind of a Clay McLeod Chapman novel I read recently, called Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. The subject matter and setting are very different, but both use weird horror as political allegory in such a direct way that it is barely subtext. Garth Marenghi would be proud.

This may sound like a complaint, but it’s not. While no one could accuse Best Wishes to All of being subtle, it is effective and deeply unsettling. Out of all the films I’ve watched this month, this is the first that’s really creeped me out. The growing sense of wrongness underlying this perfect family is presented perfectly. We are treated to one weird, unsettling moment after another, hinting at a larger pattern. Even when we get the big reveal, around 30 minutes in, it actually increases the tension. That is a rare thing.

Ultimately, Best Wishes to All is a fairly straightforward morality play, simply told, but peppered with moments of uncanniness. There is some gore and body horror, with scenes that will disgust you or make you flinch, but the real disquiet comes from the banality of its characters as they discuss truly awful things. The result is one of the strongest films I’ve seen this month and one that I suspect will stay with me for some time. This is another strong contender for film of the month. Highly recommended.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

Heretic (USA, 2024)
The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
The Monkey (USA, 2025)
Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
Hatching (Finland, 2022)
Abigail (USA, 2024)
Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
Pieces (Spain, 1982)
Infested (France, 2023)
Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
Enys Men (UK, 2022)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.