This is a side of director Shane Ryan that I’ve never seen before. Intended to be in competition for the winning slot in the highly publicized 2013 horror film “The ABCs of Death,” Shane Ryan gives us “T for Tag.” Now known as “Tag,” Ryan’s short film is a spooky, unnerving, and gruesome bit of revenge cinema that channels the likes of Takashi Shimizu for a short that’s based heavily on violence, murders, and the ever merciless demon of guilt that plagues our young protagonist.
Engaging in a game of Tag with a ghostly apparition of her little sister, Miki is consistently tormented and abused by the ghost of Aki, who not only blames her for the events that unfolded the night of her death, but wants her to feel some semblance of physical and emotional pain for the incident that resulted in her gruesome death. In a short time, Ryan delivers some rather excellent horror imagery including the pale ghost of Aki, and scene of Aki inflicting pain on Miki’s Achilles’ tendon with a razor blade as she gradually descends down a dark flight of steps.
Director Shane Ryan has managed to really flip his style of filmmaking on a dime with such an atmospheric and terrifying bit of Japanese horror and I can’t wait to see what he can do in the future with other forms of genre filmmaking. If he can offer a short J horror gem, one can only imagine what he could do with a feature length format. Director Shane Ryan surprises with a terrifying, and spooky Japanese horror film about revenge, guilt, and what happens when the restless ghosts of the past come back to inflict pain on you for your sins.