When executing a kidnapping, common sense dictates that one perform a modicum of due diligence. For example, you might want to engage in a study of your kidnapping target; learn the child's patterns, how long it will be before she is likely to be missed, and whether or not her parents can be reasonably expected to pay your ransom demands in the time allotted. At the very least, it behooves the kidnappers to ensure that the kidnappee is among the living. This is the challenge facing the would-be-kidnappers of Pray (Japanese title: Purei): when they call the abducted child's parents, they discover their daughter has been dead for a year. In fact, she's been dead a year to the very day.

To the average horror film fan, the first half-hour of Pray is so painfully chockablock of formulaic tropes as to be insulting: a young cast of unlikable characters find themselves in a long-abandoned building (complete with unexplained noises & shadowy background figures); a main character is clearly harboring a secret; there is an unnervingly calm child with a placid face, knowing eyes and possibly preternatural origins; all of which is caught with the odd dutch angle, hazy blue lighting and a musical score that swells with dramatic tension every time someone opens a door or looks behind a curtain. By the thirty minute mark, chances are good that you'll feel as though you've seen this movie before, and that you know where it's all headed.

Let me assure you that you haven't; and you don't. Because it is here that all the built-in expectations and over-the-top performances unravel in extraordinarily bizarre ways.

In both the accompanying Q & A and "Making of Pray" DVD extras, it is made clear that star Tetsuji Tamayama (who plays the handsome, broody, chain-smoking Mitsuru; leader of the hapless pack) was influential in the direction taken by Pray - and that it was his goal to make a horror film unlike one you've seen before. (In fact, these extras focus almost solely on Tamayama and his ideas rather than the film and its intentions. This is unfortunate, as I was hoping they might serve to clear up the host of the questions I was left with at the end.) I would like to say that Pray succeeds in its bid to be a complex, multi-layered film - one that is, as Tamayama hopes, "a horror that can make you cry." Instead, I find I must say it is more convoluted than complex - even confusing. At the core of Pray, there is a compelling ghost story fraught with tension and emotion which (despite it's leanings towards the melodramatic) could easily have accomplished Tamayama's goals. This storyline is emotionally engaging, lovingly filmed, features the film's most harrowing, human moments, and manages to make every day items such as playground equipment, musical instruments, debris and basic indoor plumbing creepy and ominous. However, this quietly affecting story is overshadowed by a ridiculous secondary plot full of unbelievable coincidences, bad special effects, startling (and unconvincing) gore, wooden characters, clunky dialog and violence that borders on slapstick. (Although it's interesting to note that the English subtitles in the trailer are slightly different in tone than those utilized in the film, which makes me wonder if some of the fault with the dialog might lie in the translation.) Not only do these scenes disturb the pacing and disrupt any sense of tension the other plot works to build, but they are so inelegantly executed that I cannot help but wonder if they meant to be taken seriously by the audience at all, or if they are meant as an ironic statement on the popular horror movie genre. I'm three viewings in and I'm still not sure.

If Pray had ended about fifteen minutes before it did, I could have forgiven it it's multitude of sins in the name of an interesting ending to a touching story. However, these loose ends wrapped up, Pray chooses to drag on and raise more unnecessary questions. In short, Pray is a decent movie possessed by the spirit of a bad film.