English Dub Review: Horror Collector “The Shadow Enveloping the City”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Several girls hear a voice in the woods and notice a strange woman lurking in the background of their photos.

Our Take:
With Halloween here, it’s fitting to get an anime centered on spooky legends terrorizing the real world.  While the concept is indeed petrifying regarding its presentation, the actual problem I struggle with, at least in the first episode, is the execution, especially for its scares.  I’ve seen a lot of horror movies and shows, and what terrifies me most is the psychological and real-life aspects.  Since this is nothing but supernatural ghosts based on urban myths, it feels as basic as a Blumhouse horror movie.  On the bright side, I learned plenty about Japanese urban legends that I’ll avoid during my first trip to Japan.
As for its structure, the show highlighted that it’ll likely show different victims confronting various supernatural beings before Fushigi saves them, or at least some of them.  We also learned that he’s searching for his twin sister, Himitsu, who may be responsible for the ghouls’ sudden appearances, which would make for an interesting sibling rivalry.  This episode is no different, as Fushigi helps a group of girls survive a ghostly woman known as Little Nanoka.  Little Nanoka is said to target those who took pictures of her in the background.  Seven days after the photo is taken, she’ll swoop down and kill them.  This also leads one of them to protect her younger sister, Izumi, from her “inevitable” fate while uncovering the secret behind the cursed forest.
“The Shadow Enveloping the City” further shows that Himitsu, along with her accomplice, is responsible for bringing the legends to life, including Little Nanoka.  But it still lacks a stronger direction in conveying the sheer terror of these creatures through the scares, rushed pacing, and performances.  There’s also this one sequence involving Nanoka attacking Izumi where the animation flow looked very inconsistent.  It somehow reminded me of a title sequence from an early-2000s cartoon.  The rest of the presentation looked fine enough to highlight its art style.  However, for something that’s supposed to be both fun and hauntingly surreal, it could’ve looked a lot better or, in this case, spookier.