"Phantom of the Silver Screen" is the second case arc in the Case series of The Kindaichi Case Files.
After Kindaichi, Miyuki, Saki, and Fumi finish watching a romantic movie starring Reika, a fellow Fudou High School student, who's an aspiring movie director, spots Miyuki and requests for her to be the lead actress in a new film he's making. Miyuki agrees to the request, and so Kindaichi, with Saki and Fumi in tow, joins Miyuki and meets the members of the Movie Research Club for the film-making project, all while a serial murder case is also in development.
Tropes include:
- Accidental Murder: In the backstory, the culprit's brother was to participate in an action film made by members of the Movie Research Club, which included a scene that would involve jumping from a 12-floor tall building to another one, as the culprit finds out while reading the script before the culprit's brother was about to head out. The culprit tried desperately to find their brother after he went missing from the film-shooting, but it took a while before finding a lead in a movie being showcased that had the scene of building-jumping that the culprit saw in the script. The absence of the culprit's brother throughout the film caused the culprit to visit the club-room in secret to find out more, and it's there that the culprit overheard some Awful Truth: The film production crew had placed a mattress on the ground in case the culprit's brother didn't make it through the jump, but the mattress got moved away without his knowledge for the sake of filming angle and his jump was met with a strong gust of head-wind that caused him to fall to his doom. The film was then redone with a replacement actor, who would be among the victims in this serial murder case, without acknowledging the contribution by the culprit's brother at all, whose corpse was also hidden away. It's at this point the culprit decided to murder everyone who had a hand in the production of the film he was supposed to be in in the first place.
- Big Brother Instinct: Inverted. The culprit's older brother being dead/missing during the filming of the movie he was participating in and the subsequent actions of erasing all of his involvements and even mere mention of his name from all who were in the know about the truth of his disappearance/death were the culprit's murder motive.
- Bookends: The case arc starts with Kindaichi, Miyuki, Saki, and Fumi watching a movie that stars Reika. At the end of the case arc, Kindaichi and Miyuki decide to watch another one.Miyuki: *pulling Kindaichi's arm* Let's go, let's go.
Kindaichi: Hey, Miyuki! Stop pulling! You're hurting me! - Chromosome Casting: In-Universe. Based on the sequences being shown, "The Fugitive", the film that the culprit's brother was involved with, had only male characters.
- Development Hell: In-Universe. The film project that's supposed to star Miyuki gets derailed because of the serial murder case, and there's no sign of the film ever finishing due to most of the major contributors to the film, including the director, the cameraman, and the script-writer, falling victim to the murder case.
- Died During Production: In-Universe.
- The director, the script-writer, and the cameraman all fall victim in the serial murder case while a film project is ongoing, leaving the fate of said project uncertain at best.
- The culprit's brother died in an Accidental Murder due to a filming sequence going horribly wrong.
- Disney Villain Death: Played with in that the person dying this way is NOT a villain, but it's otherwise played straight. The culprit's brother fell to his demise in the filming sequence that involved him jumping from a 12-floor tall building to another one when his jump was met with a strong gust of head-wind.
- Fatal Method Acting: In-Universe. The culprit's brother suffered this fate due to a filming sequence that went horribly wrong.
- Finger Framing: The student director gauges Miyuki using his fingers in this fashion while watching her walking by, before asking her to star in his upcoming movie project.
- Imagine Spot: Upon seeing the part in the movie starring Reika where she and the lead actor share a kiss, Kindaichi has a daydream in which she falls in love with the lead actor and leaves him behind.
- Japanese School Club: The main participants in this case arc are members of the Movie Research Club within Fudou High School of Fine Arts, with the director serving as its chairman.
- Minor Major Character: Reika is one of the recurring characters, but her appearance in this case arc consists of meeting Kindaichi and co. at the start, which inadvertently pushes Miyuki into the events unfolding in the case arc, with Kindaichi, Fumi, and Saki following suit, after which she's entirely absent for the rest of the case arc.
- Mood Whiplash: The director's "suicide confession" project suddenly changes into a slapstick comedy scene, much to the surprise of every survivor watching the screen. As Kindaichi reveals during The Summation, this is a clue that the director's death was Never Suicide.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Movie Research Club director is a not so subtle reference to Akira Kurosawa taking the role of his grandson. In reality, no known grandson of Kurosawa was murdered.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- After watching the movie at the start of the case arc, Reika meets Hajime, Miyuki, Saki, and Fumi and tearfully confesses to them that she didn't give them the tickets for that film because she didn't want to give them the wrong idea about her romantic aspects.
- At the director's request, Kindaichi and Miyuki take a dummy doll into the club room. They enter a room... and find the club actress in the midst of changing her clothes. Not surprisingly, she gets angry at them and yells for them to "Get Out!".
- Rain of Blood: In this scenario, it's the "finding drops of blood dripping onto the floor" variant. Early in the case arc, Kindaichi spots drops of blood dripping on the stage floor after the curtain is raised; once he looks up, he finds the script-writer's bloodied corpse entangled in many 8mm film strips and suspended to the railings there.
- School Festival: The culprit confesses to have seen the movie the missing brother was helping to make at a Cultural Festival organized by Fudou High School of Fine Arts.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The club actor attempts to quit and get out of dodge after witnessing the public display of the script-writer's dead body, but the culprit corners and kills him before he can manage it.
- Serious Business: The cameraman of the Movie Research Club treats filming with his trusted 8mm camera with pride, resulting in him dismissing Saki's video camera and Saki dismissing his 8mm type in return. The two end up arguing against each other as the result before another club member stops them.
- Shipper on Deck: Possibly. Fumi asks the record-keeper at one point whether she might be in love with the director, resulting in the record-keeper looking nervous and red in the face, so there is some potential validity in Fumi's question, at least toward the record-keeper. That being said, nothing comes of it, as the director gives no hint of harboring romantic feeling for anyone and ends up as the final victim in this case anyway.
- The Show Must Go On: After the culprit's brother died in a filming sequence that went horribly wrong, the director managed to get a replacement actor to take his place for the movie.note
- Slipping a Mickey: As Kindaichi breaks down on the inconsistencies he discovers regarding the director's previous film to all who are present, everyone suddenly starts passing out. Late in The Summation, Kindaichi deduces that the culprit had secretly laced the paper cups everyone drinks from with Valium except for the one the culprit takes to not only kill the cameraman but also set up the scene that would create a locked-room mystery in an attempt to have the director pinned as the murderer.
- Spanner in the Works: When Kindaichi is about to conduct Summation Gathering (for the first time, as it turns out, since this is before the director and the cameraman fall victim to the culprit) and sends Miyuki to gather everyone into the club-room, Kenmochi and a fellow inspector are among the people Miyuki gathers. In the second Summation Gathering, Kindaichi explains that the presence of the two inspectors, Kenmochi being one of them, complicates the culprit's plan of Slipping a Mickey on everyone except the director (who would die from the poison in his own personal mug) and the culprit, but the culprit nonetheless manages to overcome this slight hurdle by fetching two additional unused and clean paper cups and adding Valium to them before placing them into the bag containing the cups. This allows the culprit to carry on the rest of the murder plot unabated, though it causes a slight incongruence that tips Kindaichi off after the fact.
- Another example actually happens in this sequence - when Kindaichi sends Miyuki to call for everyone to the club room, Miyuki accidentally tips over a table with a stack of film containers, and in their haste to get the room ready for Kindaichi's experiment to show what happened during the filming of "The Fugitive", he and Saki end up stuffing the film reels haphazardly into the containers regardless of the label. This ends up helping Kindaichi figure out the killer's trick, as a result of this mishap is that the killer's reel, which was supposed to be a 'suicide note' implicating the final victim for the crimes using the unreleased horror film the club had made previously, ends up abruptly switching into a comedic medieval sword-fight scene midway.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: The director is killed by a slow-acting poison right around the same time everyone else except the culprit passes out from the Valium that is found on the paper cups people drink out of at the time.
- Tongue-Out Insult: Shortly after Kindaichi and co. meet up with the Movie Research Club members and the director consents to letting Kindaichi and co. stay on the condition that they leave the filming equipment alone, Fumi, who's no fan of the director's demeanor, sticks her tongue out at the director the moment he has his back turned.
- Tragic Dream: The culprit's late brother dreamed of becoming an action movie star. As the culprit confesses late in the case arc, he used to train in the gym and take acting lessons, and the independent film he was to join would have been another step on his way to stardom, but the filming sequence that went horribly wrong ensures that this dream of his will never come true.
- Tragic Keepsake: One of the things Kindaichi shows the culprit, who's in prison for the murders, as the case arc is near the end is a wristwatch that culprit confesses to have bought as a birthday present last year, which the culprit's brother liked a lot and wore right up to the time he went filming. The watch was broken and stopped on the exact day of the filming, when the wearer died.
- Unperson: Downplayed. The culprit's brother was supposed to be in an action film the Movie Research Club made, but not even his name was shown anywhere in the credits, much less his physical appearance. While there's no inherent taboo against speaking about him or the movie that was supposed to include him, the director makes it clear he wants to sweep the whole affair about the guy or the movie under the rug and the other Club members who are in the know prefer not to stir the pot. This is part of the fuel that drove the culprit into murder.
- What Could Have Been: Discussed In-Universe during Kindaichi's visit to the culprit while the latter is incarcerated, after Kindaichi reveals that the role the culprit's brother was meant to serve was not as "stuntman" like the culprit had thought, but as "leading actor" instead.Kindaichi: I really wish I could see that movie — the original version with your brother as the leading actor! With the replacement actor, that movie could only fetch a second prize. But what would it be like if your brother was the leading actor?
Culprit: It's obvious, isn't it? *tearfully* Definitely... the first prize!
