Yokai Apocalypse

Hans De Witt undertakes voluntary work in the rice fields of a remote location in Japan. He is hosted on the farm of husband and wife Ken and Nao Takahashi, and they celebrate with a welcome banquet in the company of the Watanabe family. Hans meets Akane, daughter of the Watanabe's and granddaughter of the Takahashi's, with whom he has a difference of opinion about the existence of ancient creatures from native folklore. Akane recalls what her grandfather used to tell her when she was a child: if she didn't behave, the kappa would come and take her away with it. So she gets up distraught and retires to the kitchen. Hans goes into the bathroom and, after urinating, sees the water in the drain boiling and splashing blood everywhere. Frightened, he rushes out and bumps into Akane. He takes the opportunity to apologize and the two manage to come to an understanding. Akane returns to the kitchen while Hans notices that the bathroom is shiny and clean. Once they are reunited and overcome the first adversities and misunderstandings, they toast together in a cheerful and convivial atmosphere. Hans cannot sleep and is haunted by his turbulent past. Years before he arrived in Japan, he drowned in a river his newborn brother, named Ian and suffering from the rare syndrome of Harlequin Ichthyosis. Akane is also burdened by nightmares, as she was abused by her grandfather when she was a child. Nao, who cannot tolerate alcohol, rushes to the bathroom and notices a toad emerging from the drain. In a panic, she flushes the toilet. Outside, she meets her husband Ken and recommends that he call a plumber as soon as possible to have a backflow preventer installed. Ken nods listlessly and locks himself in the bathroom, stricken with a violent stomachache. Ken is killed by a Kappa. Hans and Akane, meanwhile, walk outside and discover they have a lot in common. Hans confides in Akane, revealing his tragic past. Akane understands Hans' mixed feelings and tries to comfort him. They are about to kiss when suddenly they hear Nao's screams. They head to the bathroom and are shocked by the presence of blood everywhere. They decide to call the police and warn the rest of the village. Hans volunteers to go with the Watanabes, while advising Akane to stay with her aunt. Akane takes care of Nao and thinks that what happened to Ken is an ominous warning. We discover that the rice planting ritual has not been celebrated for decades, due to a mysterious incident at the shrine. Akane, worried about her horses, leaves Nao alone, and the latter is killed by Maru-chan, the family cat despised by Nao, transformed into a feline monster. Akane enters the stable, finding the animals bolting and, when a toad appears, the horses collapse to the ground, turning into skeletal corpses. At the same time, Akane hears a voice echoing in her head, asking her to deliver 'the foreigner's soul'. Armed with an axe, Akane rushes to her home, where she is overwhelmed by a horde of monstrous toads. Hans is in the car with the Watanabes and they begin to show symptoms of shared psychosis and hysteria. Suddenly, a winged creature swoops down on them and lifts the car into the air, causing it to crash into a tree. Hans wakes up in the woods, miraculously alive compared to the Watanabes. Here he has a vision of himself hanging from a tree and hears a mysterious voice coming from a stream. He reaches the bank and sees the head of a kappa emerge, which Hans recognizes as his brother Ian. The creature grabs him by the arm and drags him with it into the depths. We discover that Akane has survived the onslaught of toads, reaching the decayed shrine where she meets a mysterious priest. Akane approaches him and notices that he has the same features as her grandfather, mutated into a putrid and revolting figure. Akane takes revenge on his grandfather by beheading him with the axe. When she throws the weapon away, a woman behind her begs her to help her carry out her revenge. Akane refuses the evil woman's proposal, and the latter hurls herself at her, imprisoning Akane between the pages of a cursed book. The true story of the shrine is then revealed: years earlier, a foreign traveller killed a young woman who worked in the inn where he was staying, dragging her by the hair to the latrine and drowning her in the well. He also killed the son of the village chief, to whom the woman had been betrothed, in a fight to the death in the sanctuary. The inn was demolished and, on its foundations, the Takahashis erected their farm. From these events, a legend soon spread, according to which it was believed that in the depths of the well lurked the tormented soul of the woman and, should a sin-branded stranger urinate inside the same well, she would unleash her wrath by casting a curse on the entire village. If the debt is not paid by dawn, at the cost of the foreigner's soul, the plague will spread everywhere, unleashing hordes of monstrous creatures. Hans finds himself in a cave with a harmless kappa specimen, with whom he has a stimulating conversation about his past and his fate. Suddenly he wakes up in a cramped room, where a macabre old woman feasts on his head and remains. Hans sets fire to her and the room, consumed by the fire, dissolves into the air, causing him to plunge into the middle of the forest. Here he finds Akane again but is immediately attacked by a group of zombie-like beings. Running away frightened, Hans saves Akane from one of these monsters and they take shelter under a bridge. The two, shaken and disheartened, kiss and decide to move on. When they arrive at the village, chaos and hysteria rage everywhere. All citizens are chased by droves of monstrous beings, succumbing to merciless and disparate deaths. Hans and Akane manage to barricade themselves in a workshop. Here Hans finds a gun. Akane also reveals that the computers and telephones are out of order. Beings resembling unclean dogs manage to enter and a gruelling fight for survival ensues. While Hans keeps the creatures at bay by firing incessantly, Akane manages to open the back door, from which an avalanche of toads pours into the room. Shaken and frightened, Akane discovers an alternative escape route through a trapdoor. Hans meanwhile has run out of bullets and runs away from the creatures. The two manage to save themselves by promptly closing the trapdoor above them. They find themselves in the basement, a dark labyrinth of tunnels similar to a sewer network. Hans and Akane continue on and find the entrance to a shaft dug into the ground, of unfathomable depth. Akane proposes to climb down, claiming that if she does not do something soon, it will be the end for everyone. Hans, suspicious of her words, lights up Akane's face and sees that it is beginning to be furrowed with bloodstains. Akane takes a running start and dives into the well, being swallowed up by the darkness, from which an abominable figure emerges soon after. Following the confrontation in the shrine, the soul of the evil woman has managed to take possession of Akane's body, and now aspires to assume its final form. During the ensuing scuffle, Hans is beaten several times by the monster and finally dragged to the bottom of the well. Immediately afterwards Hans opens his eyes again in a dreamlike dimension, in which he finds himself on an altar surrounded by unclean creatures. Akane lies on top of him naked and, as they consummate intercourse, she performs a gradual metamorphosis by which she takes on the form of the spider-woman. Akane then kills Hans, decapitating him with pincers. From Hans' severed neck emerges intact, as if from a nightmare, the body of his infant brother Ian. At first light, Akane wakes up at the entrance to the shrine and notices that Ian is lying on the altar. There is no trace of Hans, as if he had vanished into thin air. Akane takes the newborn baby with her, reassuring him that she will take care of him from now on, and runs away as soon as she hears help arriving. The massacre soon becomes news and all the national broadcasters report on it, declaring that the area has been quarantined following the discovery of a colony of toads, carriers of a parasite dangerous to humans and causing a viral infection of epidemic fever and violent rages. Akane, finally free of curses and chains, reaches a remote corner nestled in the hills and fog. Here she takes refuge in a hermitage, taking Ian with her and thus sealing a new beginning for both of them.