Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman

Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman (also known as A Slit-Mouthed Woman) is a 2007 Japanese supernatural horror film directed by Kōji Shiraishi, who co-wrote it with Naoyuki Yokota. It draws from the Japanese urban legend of Kuchisake-onna, a woman with a disfigured mouth. The cast includes Eriko Sato as Kyōko Yamashita, a divorced mother and teacher, and Haruhiko Kato as Noboru Matsuzaki, her co-worker. Together, they investigate a string of child abductions.

The story begins as rumors of the Slit-Mouthed Woman spread through a town. An earthquake uncovers a corpse matching her description in an abandoned house. Meanwhile, teacher Noboru Matsuzaki hears a voice asking, "Am I pretty?" A boy searching for the entity with friends is abducted from a playground. The school then sends students home in groups with staff. Student Mika Sasaki resists leaving, telling teacher Kyōko that her mother hits her. When Mika says she hates her mother, Kyōko—whose own daughter lives with her ex-husband—becomes upset, and Mika runs away. She encounters Kuchisake-onna, whose presence was foreshadowed by Noboru hearing her voice. Mika knocks off the entity's mask, revealing its disfigured face, before being taken.

Noboru shows Kyōko a thirty-year-old photo of a woman resembling the entity. After hearing the voice again, he traces it to a house, where they rescue a boy. Kyōko stabs Kuchisake-onna with a knife, but the body transforms into a housewife, revealing the spirit can possess other women, who develop a cough. Noboru identifies the woman in the photo as his deceased mother, Taeko Matsuzaki, a sickly, abusive woman who killed his siblings and then "disappeared," after which sightings of Kuchisake-onna began. The spirit possesses the mother of Mika's friend Natsuki, takes Natsuki to its lair, cuts her mouth, and murders the abducted boy. Natsuki is found at a park and hospitalized.

Kyōko finds a note saying Kuchisake-onna's hideout is a deserted house with a red roof, matching Noboru's childhood home. Noboru recalls that Taeko asked him to mercy kill her, warning she would return to haunt others. Instead, he slit her mouth, stabbed her, dressed her in a coat and mask, and hid her in a closet. Kyōko and Noboru find Mika in the basement and are attacked. Kyōko stabs the spirit in the neck, leaving Natsuki's mother's body behind. Mika's mother then becomes the new host.