Not to be confused with the horse-fucking documentary of the same name, Japan’s Zoo is a horror anthology culled from the works of the country’s uni-monikered Otsuichi, presumably a Stephen King of sorts. You wouldn’t know this from the film, which has no wraparound story or any system of linkage, nor the freaky, faceless guide pictured on its cover, which it could use. Each helmed by different directors, the five tales vary in length, style and quality; only one is excellent, while another is an utter chore.

“Kazari and Yoko” is a solid opener, a tale of two sisters who couldn’t be more different, despite being twins. Kazari is beautiful and doted upon by their mother; Yoko is treated literally like a dog and often abused. One day, Yoko decides to play a trick, and it’s as crafty as the segment overall. By contrast, the closing story, “Zoo,” is the worst of a bunch. Its elongated plot finds a guy killing his girlfriend at an abandoned zoo, then returning every day to take a Polaroid of her maggoty corpse so he can make a flipbook. It also has something to do with a zebra, and it doesn’t help that it’s purposely shot on ultra-grainy video.

“So Far” is a quasi-ghost story that goes on too long, with a twist that mitigates any power. It examines what happens when an only child’s parents are killed in a car crash, but return as ghosts, only unable to be seen or heard by the other spouse. “The Poem of Collected Sunlight” stands out, but only because it’s animated. The two-character bit is like the Frankenstein myth rendered as a tonal piece.

“Seven Rooms” makes the entire film worthy of existence, as a little boy and his older sister awake in a locked room with a dirt floor and concrete walls, with no recollection of getting there, nor much hope for escape. It’s like a combination of Cube and those ones with the chainsaw. Now, nothing about “Seven Rooms” (or any of Zoo, for that matter) is scary, but it’s packed with mystery, suspense and ingenuity — elements most of the other segments severely lack. —Rod Lott

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