Story: The most interesting part of this movie is it's story. Plenty of twists to keep you paying attention- that is, if you can pay attention after the first thirty minutes of the movie which is primarily mind-numbing exposition. The second half of the movie, however, made everything feel worth it. All of the plot that's presented to the viewer in the first act gets wrapped up without much question in the final act. 8/10
Art/Animation: This is by the worst aspect of the Ao Oni movie. Half the time it looks like I'm watching a bunch of PSX cutscenes while the other half of the time it feels like I'm watching a Garry's Mod animation made in 2013. It's obvious by the way the human characters move that this movie was made to be animated in 2D, a lot of the problems with the animation style are caused by the CG graphics. The way the characters move would look perfectly fine in 2D, but because they're 3D models, their disjointed movements cause almost everything they do to look awkward. The characters look fine from far away shots, but getting too close to them kills almost any amount of immersion I was feeling. The silver lining of the animation style is the Ao Oni itself. I have a feeling that if the rest of the movie were 2D and it was ONLY the Ao Oni's that were CG animated, they would be a lot more frightening. As is, the best scenes in the movie visually are the scenes in which the Ao Oni is mauling someone. Everything else is just visual garbage. 3/10
Sound: I appreciate the fact that they still use the violin sting to signify danger, and I liked the song that played over the credits, but there's not much outstanding sound work to mention. There's one part of the movie in which the main characters are listening to old tapes, but the voice on the tapes is not distorted at all which seemed to me like an oversight. Nothing overly offensive though. 5/10
Characters: The characters are extremely hit-or-miss. It was really disappointing that the moment the movie began to capture my interest, the two only characters with strong personalities were completely absent. What makes matters worse is that the characters that stuck around are majorly boring and lifeless. I'll give a mention to Mifuyu Hatano, who sticks around for the majority of the movie and is actually pretty interesting. The rest of the characters are pretty bland, so this score will mostly go to the few characters that I actually enjoyed. 6/10
Enjoyment: When I finished the movie and got to the credits, I was left with a good time overall. The ending really made the movie something special. It's concept is actually quite unique as far as monster movies go. However, the abhorrent animation and boring first act make it a challenge to sit through at times, but if you're patient, then the Ao Oni movie may be an alright watch. 6/10
