MAG MAG (Japan, 2025)
Official Synopsis
“If you see her, it’s too late. If she falls in love with you, the only escape is death.” After her beloved is killed by the Mag Mag ghost, Sanae vows revenge, but soon discovers the true identity of the person she truly owes her retribution in a twisted love story combining horror and humour, delivering a powerful blow to the world.
Review
Devotees of J-horror are sure to get a kick out of ghost/revenge tale Mag Mag, which serves up both humor and horror. It’s Japanese comedian Yuriyan Retriever’s debut feature, working from a screenplay written by Eisuke Naito, himself a genre-film director. With a classic opening set-up of a ghostly curse leading to the death of a popular high school bully, the film goes to highly unexpected places. Told in a series of segments involving different characters, its common threads are tied up together well in the third act.
Sara Minami as Rumi and Aoi Yamada as Yurika are the two leads, rivals for the affection of sculptor Hiroshi Masumura (Ôshirô Maeda). Minami gets to show her chops as her character, in a wicked turn on the curse investigator role, goes to out-there emotional places. Retriever and Naito both pay homage to and satirize J-horror, with the titular spectre, who pursues her love interests until their deaths, being only part of the problem that characters face. Bullying and body shaming are addressed, along with other social issues. Gory and goofy, Mag Mag is a blast.
THE TURKISH COFFEE TABLE (CAM SEHPA; Turkey, 2025)
Official synopsis
A couple’s argument over a coffee table spirals into chaos when a simple mistake turns into a desperate web of lies, panic, deception, and the terrifying consequences of trying to cover up the truth. Time to remind you of the darkness underlying everything, one that forces you to look into the void with elegance, wit and sympathy.
Review
Director Caye Casas gave cinephiles perhaps the strongest candidate for “Feel-Bad Movie of the Year” in 2023 with his pitch-black Spanish horror comedy The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor). It’s the sort of disturbing yet admirable film that is hard enough to sit through once, so who would be audacious enough to try a remake of it? Writer/director Can Evrenol (Baskin; Sayara) is no stranger to discomfiting fear-fare, and so says “Hold my missing screw” with his delivery of The Turkish Coffee Table (Cam Sehpa).
Besides putting a different cultural spin on the proceedings, Evrenol also ramps up the gruesomeness factor. Whereas The Coffee Table worked so effectively to make viewers squirm in their seats because of what wasn’t shown on screen, Evrenol has no qualms about showcasing the results of a jaw-dropping, heartbreaking accident using practical effects.
Ibrahim (Alper Kul) and Zehra (Algi Eke), parents of a newborn baby, are at odds over Ibrahim’s choice of a tacky looking coffee table — and from their arguing, it’s obvious that is not the only problem the pair is having. Ibrahim tries to cover up a tragic accident but the stalker teenage neighbor (Elif Sevinc) who is obsessed with him and the dinner date with Ibrahim’s brother (Ozgur Emre Yildirim) and his influencer girlfriend (Ece Su Uckan) escalate matters to a nightmarish pitch.
The Turkish Coffee Table follows the original rather closely but definitely adds enough new and different material to stand on its own. Kul and Eke are terrific, leading a strong cast. Like the original, I give the film a cautious recommendation. It’s an intriguing, impressive work that is solidly helmed and that boasts great production values, but some viewers will find it hard to make it through to the end.
Mag Mag and The Turkish Coffee Table screened as part of FrightFest Halloween 2025, which took place at the ODEON Luxe West End in London, U.K. on October 31st and November 1st.
