Best Wishes to All – Movie Review | Shudder (4/5)

BEST WISHES TO ALL on Shudder is a new Japanese horror movie. It’s psychological horror mostly, but it will definitely make you feel extremely uncomfortable in your skin. Read our full Best Wishes to All movie review here!

BEST WISHES TO ALL is a new Shudder horror movie addition from Japan. While it’s a very efficient psychological horror movie, it also has several physical elements to its story. Often in ways that are more shocking and icky than downright brutal and cruel.

Oh, don’t get me wrong; You will see blood and people subjected to brutal pain. However, this is not Audition or any of those other torture-fueled horror movies. This is much more low-key and at some point, most people should feel their skin crawl. I know I did. Often!

We follow a young woman as she visits her grandparents’ home while getting ready for the final exam on her way to becoming a nurse. She wants only to care for others, but will soon discover that the happiness of her family isn’t a given. It’s a carefully orchestrated choice.

Continue reading our Best Wishes to All movie review below. Find it on Shudder on Friday the 13th of June, 2025. A perfect release date, I might add!

Familiar but with a wild twist

When Best Wishes to All begins, it doesn’t feel very familiar, but then it evolves into something that reminded me a lot of The Visit. You know, the M. Night Shyamalan movie that made us all believe he still had that magic touch.

Well, it certainly had that impact on me.

You know that eerie feeling that something is off, and old people acting in erratic (or just unexpected) ways will do that. Is dementia looming or is it something more sinister?!

Well, for The Visit, it was something more sinister, and the same goes for Best Wishes to All. However, in wildly different ways.

Not enough happiness to go around

For this Japanese horror movie, the core concept revolves around the idea that there’s a finite amount of happiness in the world. As a result, if you want to be happy, someone else has to suffer.

As it turns out, making someone else suffer for the happiness of your family is indeed a family affair.

It’s the kind of revelation that shocks you to your core. And, as a nurse who lives to help and care for others, can she live with this?! Can she go along with her family’s tradition to ensure happiness? And how can this possibly be normal or right?!

It will all lead her to question her life choices, morale, sanity, and reality itself.

Watch Best Wishes to All on Shudder

This new Japanese horror movie with the original title of Mina ni sachi are (and the International alternative title of “Best Regards to All”) marks the feature film debut of Yûta Shimotsu, who wrote and directed it.

It’s actually from 2023 but has been doing the film festival circuit for years and is now finally coming to Shudder. Perfect timing, as the second film from filmmaker Yûta Shimotsu is coming to the Fantasia International Film Festival 2025 next month (July 2025).

DO CHECK OUT

Our coverage of the always amazing Fantasia Film Festival >

For the first movie, Yûta Shimotsu had extra support in the form of producer Takashi Shimizu, who directed the iconic J-Horror movie Ju-on, aka The Grudge.

The cast of Best Wishes to All may not be familiar to you, but they all deliver eerie and/or heartfelt performances that make the story come together. Especially Kotone Furukawa shines in the lead role as the loving young woman caught up in something crazy.

Whether you love J-Horror or are more on the fence (I usually prefer South Korean genre films to Japanese), this movie is definitely worth checking out on Shudder. Especially on a day like Friday the 13th, which lines up perfectly with its Shudder release date.

Enjoy… if you can stomach this one!

Best Wishes to All is streaming on Shudder from Friday, June 13th, 2025.

Details

Director: Yûta Shimotsu
Screenwriter: Yûta Shimotsu
Cast: Kotone Furukawa, Koya Matsudai, Yoshiko Inuyama, Hirofumi Nishida, Masashi Arifuku