The Malaysian International Film Festival of 2026 has officially kicked off! And because I missed the entire run last year, this year I promised myself not to repeat the same mistake and to catch some of the incredible films in the lineup. I’ll go straight to the first film I watched at MIFFest, called AnyMart. Released earlier this year, this Japanese film tells the story of Sakai, a worker at a convenience store called AnyMart, who never really finds any excitement in his days there — until he starts confronting some weird supernatural events in the store.
Directed and written by Yusuke Iwasaki, I think what excited me to choose and check out this film was mostly the trailer itself. It was one of the shortest trailers I’ve ever seen for a film, but it did its job — getting you, the potential audience, to want to see it. I knew it was going to be a horror film, but thanks to the trailer, I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond that.
I think the strongest element in this film was the editing. The transitions and cuts truly made you feel uneasy throughout. The other standout was the scoring — the music and soundtrack were composed so brilliantly that they never let you feel relieved or safe the whole time. You always feel like something’s about to happen.
On the flip side, I wasn’t a big fan of the writing. Did it have some good jump scares? Sure. But it wasn’t as compelling as it seemed to think it was. There were just some holes in the story that were never shown or answered. Still, I enjoyed this film, and it had some great scares, as I mentioned. 6.7/10 for this one!
