How did a single ‘Big in Japan’ videotape change the course of global horror history? Find out in this insightful documentary charting the origins, evolution and diffusion across the world of a distinctive brand of Japanese supernatural chillers featuring vengeful ghosts manifesting themselves through contemporary technology against a backdrop of urban alienation and social decay. From PSYCHIC VISION: JAGANREI (1988) and straight-to-video SCARY TRUE STORIES to such key titles as RING (1998), PULSE (2001) and THE GRUDGE (2002), critics and filmmakers reflect on how the bleak Dystopian visions and unsettling atmospheres infiltrated their way into the world’s shocker consciousness.
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Na-young, a reporter, hears from her friend U-won, a station attendant, about a ghost of a child in the abandoned station house under OKSU Station. Curious, Na-young decides to investigate further. She finds out that there was a train accident at the station and there was a fatality. When Na-young meets the sister of the fatality TAEHO, she hears from TAEHEE that her brother was looking around for a well. Na-young and U-won set out to search for the well, buried somewhere around the abandoned station house. After they find the well; they promise the children's ghosts they meet there that they will tell the public the truth that children at OKSU Nursery were buried "alive" in the well. Though the truth was revealed, the deepened resentment could not be ended.
Director
The film follows Saki (Momotsuki), Mei (Kudo), and Kaho (Teramoto), the members of the budding idol group called Wish as they are set to appear in the sequel of Toei's hit movie, Yugami. Toei Movie Studios is a place where a lot of popular movies and dramas are filmed, but this studio also has an untold secret.
In the time after Naomi’s parents suddenly die, she happens to meet and bond with the popular actor Morinori Tokito who lives in the same apartment building.
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Saki, Anju, Chiaki, Ami, and Kaya reunite for the first time in years. The five of them excitedly decide to go Toshimaen Amusement Park, a place that was very important to them when they were younger. None of them know that they're about to enter a nightmare…
Director
Saki, Anju, Chiaki, Ami, and Kaya reunite for the first time in years. The five of them excitedly decide to go Toshimaen Amusement Park, a place that was very important to them when they were younger. None of them know that they're about to enter a nightmare…
Construction worker Kumada (Kiryu) used to be a member of the popular band Uma no Hone 30 years ago. In a sudden turn of events, he moves into a low rent shared apartment. His roommate Yuka is an idol, but begins being friendly with when he says his job is related to music.
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A film that takes the theme of psycho-phobia. The film visualizes a forbidden psychic experiment that is a "departing" process to a world of madness, aimed at "spiritual revolution".
Director
A film that takes the theme of psycho-phobia. The film visualizes a forbidden psychic experiment that is a "departing" process to a world of madness, aimed at "spiritual revolution".
Teleplay
Miyuki Asakawa tells her colleague Etsuko Yamagiwa that she has a ghost in her home. When Etsuko goes to Miyuki's home, there is only Miyuki's father there. Etsuko becomes worried about Miyuki's state of mind, and she takes Miyuki to the psychiatric hospital where her husband, Tatsuo, works. There, Miyuki receives a diagnosis that she lacks the concept of "family." Later, Etsuko tells Tatsuo that she is not comfortable with Dr. Jirō Makabe. Tatsuo introduced her to Dr. Makabe earlier at the hospital. Etsuko has a feeling of unease about her husband working with Dr. Makabe. One day, Etsuko hears Dr. Makabe state "I came to Earth to invade."
Sugawara
Those who want to die seek refuge in a mysterious café in this feverishly strange Japanese debut.
Screenplay
The stage of this piece is a film school. In this setting, there is a heroine aspiring to be a director who has invited a major actress to perform in a film that will become her art project graduation piece. This actress is a lecturer and the heroine feels reverence for her. However, before one knows, the setting falls into complete disorder and the performers are forced to tackle a formidable force that is beyond the control of individuals.
Director
The stage of this piece is a film school. In this setting, there is a heroine aspiring to be a director who has invited a major actress to perform in a film that will become her art project graduation piece. This actress is a lecturer and the heroine feels reverence for her. However, before one knows, the setting falls into complete disorder and the performers are forced to tackle a formidable force that is beyond the control of individuals.
Screenplay
Dr. Hattori and her husband watch footage of brain surgery experiments with Manchurian, Russian and Japanese guinea pigs that had been found in the basement of a wrecked hospital. Out of the blue, there is a white light and when they look back, they see they children Ota Miyuki and Kaori staring at the light. Years later, Miyuki vanishes from the Tama Medical University Hospital and her sister Kaori, Miyuki's boyfriend Motojima and detective Hirasawa are seeking her. However, Miyuki and the teenagers Kazochi, Takumi, Hattori and Rieko have been submitted to a nightmarish experiment by Dr. Hattori and her team with tragic results.
Director
Dr. Hattori and her husband watch footage of brain surgery experiments with Manchurian, Russian and Japanese guinea pigs that had been found in the basement of a wrecked hospital. Out of the blue, there is a white light and when they look back, they see they children Ota Miyuki and Kaori staring at the light. Years later, Miyuki vanishes from the Tama Medical University Hospital and her sister Kaori, Miyuki's boyfriend Motojima and detective Hirasawa are seeking her. However, Miyuki and the teenagers Kazochi, Takumi, Hattori and Rieko have been submitted to a nightmarish experiment by Dr. Hattori and her team with tragic results.
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While filming in Transylvania, a crew unearths celluloid images of a woman’s murder and unleashes the wrath of evil spirits.
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The story of Orochi revolves around the life of the Monzen family. Aoi Monzen, a famous, but aging, movie star and Kazusa and Lisa Monzen her two daughters. Aoi hopes for them both to take over her legacy as a star, but Kazusa does not live up to her expectations. The mother is always pitting the girls against one another competitively. As a result, as the years pass, the love the sisters shared grows to a hidden hatred. When another girl named Orochi saves the girl's mother from a terrible accident a bizarre chain of events is set in motion spanning many years. The atmosphere in their estate builds up until Orochi reveals a terrible truth that the family must keep hidden from the world. Orochi serves as the narrator of the story. The movie is based on a Kazuo Umezu manga series which ran from 1969 to 1970.
Adaptation
The story of Orochi revolves around the life of the Monzen family. Aoi Monzen, a famous, but aging, movie star and Kazusa and Lisa Monzen her two daughters. Aoi hopes for them both to take over her legacy as a star, but Kazusa does not live up to her expectations. The mother is always pitting the girls against one another competitively. As a result, as the years pass, the love the sisters shared grows to a hidden hatred. When another girl named Orochi saves the girl's mother from a terrible accident a bizarre chain of events is set in motion spanning many years. The atmosphere in their estate builds up until Orochi reveals a terrible truth that the family must keep hidden from the world. Orochi serves as the narrator of the story. The movie is based on a Kazuo Umezu manga series which ran from 1969 to 1970.
Screenplay
A horror film directed by Hiroshi Takahashi. After winning an overwhelming number of seats in the National Diet, the Prime Minister of Japan, Shintarō Makabe, is about to undertake a constitutional revision to remove Japan's Article 9 (forbidding the building of a military). However, this leads to conflict with his wife. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has been cursed. (Description translated from Amazon.co.jp)
Director
A horror film directed by Hiroshi Takahashi. After winning an overwhelming number of seats in the National Diet, the Prime Minister of Japan, Shintarō Makabe, is about to undertake a constitutional revision to remove Japan's Article 9 (forbidding the building of a military). However, this leads to conflict with his wife. Meanwhile, the President of the United States has been cursed. (Description translated from Amazon.co.jp)
Screenplay
When an overweight girl gets dumped by her lover, she resolves to impress him by going on an extreme diet. All goes well at first, but when she is reunited with her former lover, she begins to feel the hunger pains once again...
Gregory
A young man is unable to have relations with the girls he likes. A pimp meets him after having a strange experience and they are althogether on a bizarre ride through a gloomy and disconnected Tokyo.
Screenplay
Bad things happen when innocent blood is shed. In the early 1700s, Lord Sodom Ichibei is happily celebrating his wedding day when his wife-to-be suddenly dies. In his search for an explanation, he kills any and every suspect he comes across. When Lord Ichibei tortures and kills two innocent girls, their death brings about a curse on the Sodom family. Three hundred years later, one of Sodom's descendents, Ichiro, is also set to be married. But one of the innocent victims has been reincarnated as Ichiro's sister and she kills everyone at the wedding. This transforms Ichiro into the evil and vengeful "Sodom The Killer", a cursed man hell-bent on slaughter and the world's destruction...
Director
Bad things happen when innocent blood is shed. In the early 1700s, Lord Sodom Ichibei is happily celebrating his wedding day when his wife-to-be suddenly dies. In his search for an explanation, he kills any and every suspect he comes across. When Lord Ichibei tortures and kills two innocent girls, their death brings about a curse on the Sodom family. Three hundred years later, one of Sodom's descendents, Ichiro, is also set to be married. But one of the innocent victims has been reincarnated as Ichiro's sister and she kills everyone at the wedding. This transforms Ichiro into the evil and vengeful "Sodom The Killer", a cursed man hell-bent on slaughter and the world's destruction...
While stopped at a roadside phone booth for transmitting his work through Internet to the university, Professor Hideki Satomi finds a scrap of newspaper with the picture of his five year old daughter Nana in the obituary. He sees his wife Ayaka trying to release their daughter from the seatbelt, when a truck hits his car killing Nana. Three years later, Hideki is divorced from Ayaka, who is researching paranormal people who claim to have read an evil newspaper anticipating the future. Still trying to believe in Hideki, she finds that there are people cursed to foresee the future but without the power to save the victims. When Hideki changes the future saving Ayaka, he becomes trapped in hell and he has to make a choice for his own destiny.
At some time in the 21st century, Japan's economy is in shambles. Riots and terrorism are the norm. The government buys up television stations in a last-ditch effort to promote nationalism and order to the nation. But this is the dawn of a new dark state. A new form of 3 on 3 basketball is developed in which anything goes, and the winner of the game is the team with the last man left standing.
Creative Consultant
Volunteer home-care worker Rika is assigned to visit a family, she is cursed and chased by two revengeful fiends: Kayako, a woman brutally murdered by her husband and her son Toshio. Each person that lives in or visits the haunted house is murdered or disappears.
Screenplay
Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video... and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the Ring so she can save herself and her son.
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After her brother is accused of murdering four people, his sister, desperate to prove his innocence, goes to a psychic for help. The price they ask, however, is far more than she expected, and the answers they give her are nothing she could ever have imagined. And what is the FBI doing investgating a murder in Japan?
Author
Taking place thirty years before the events of Ringu, Ringu 0 provides the shocking background story of how the girl on the video became a deadly, vengeful spirit.
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While investigating the horrifying death of her boyfriend, Mai Takano learns about a videotape haunted by the spirit of a disturbing girl named Sadako, which kills anyone who watches it exactly one week later. When her boyfriend’s son, Yoichi, starts to develop the same psychic abilities as Sadako, Takano must find a way to keep the boy and herself from becoming the next victims.
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Miyashita, a former low-level yakuza member, has tracked down and kidnapped his daughter's murderer with help of his friend Nijima. But others are soon implicated in the death, leading the pair further down a violent path of revenge.
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A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.
Screenplay
Screenplay
Sho Aikawa plays a police detective whose dark personal history makes it impossible for him to stay within the limits of the legal system. But he is not just a detective; he is also a husband who has to explain to his wife how he got blood on his sleeve. And the criminals he pursues turn out to be as imperfect and oddly human as he is-and just as determined to protect their own families. This is the first of Kurosawa's films to pay homage to 1970s American gunslingers like Dirty Harry and reinvent them for modern Tokyo.
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A direct-to-video film by Akihiko Shiota.
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Satomi breaks her lover Takao out of jail, who was falsely accused of killing her parents.
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On the set of a dark war time drama at an old movie studio, a young director, Toshio Murai, is trying to complete his debut film. The two starring actresses, Hitomi Kurokawa and Saori Murakami, play sisters in his film. Murai has a crush on Hitomi, the seasoned leading actress, and keeps a photo of her by his bed. The younger and less experienced actress, Saori, is annoying and likes to have recess on the set. The production of the movie is consistently interrupted by strange occurrences and the cast and crew begin to get spooked.
Screenplay
Shion, ruthless assassin for the Magnificat crime syndicate, is as beautiful as she is deadly. But when her latest target turns out to be the man she loves, Shion is torn between duty and her heart. Her reluctance marks her for death by Magnificat, and her decision forces her into a life on the run, with her fellow assassins always a step behind.
Screenplay
Bouya Harumichi is a new transfer student to Suzuran all-boys high school, a place where only the worst delinquents assemble. Due to its large amount of delinquents who are hated by the general people for their inauspiciousness, similarly to crows, it is also known as "Crows High School." Harumichi is an insanely strong fighter but has an irresponsible personality. How will he act in this new environment where everyone is a delinquent?
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Keiko’s life is turned upside down when she discovers that she has been infected with HIV. As she struggles to cope with the situation and resist the infection, she finds new friendship and companionship with a journalist named Miyuki and a man named Akira.
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This is a series of three short supernatural-themed movies. The first tells the story of a teen girl who dreams of haunted doll. In the second movie, a widowed mother brings her children to a house in the woods to help them forget the death of their father. While in the woods one of the children meets a ghost that wants more than just to be friends. The last movie tells the story of three teen-aged girls who go on vacation, only to find themselves at a haunted inn.
