1998 • Japan • Directed by Hideo Nakata

In 1998, director Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) unleashed a chilling tale of technological terror on unsuspecting audiences, which redefined the horror genre, launched the J-horror boom in the West and introduced a generation of moviegoers to a creepy, dark-ha...

2001 · Japan · Directed by Takashi Miike

One of the most notorious J-horror films ever made, Takashi Miike’s Audition exploded onto the festival circuit at the turn of the century to a chorus of awards and praise. The film would catapult Miike to the international scene and pave the way for such...

A strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese "salaryman", out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of dis...

After terrifying audiences worldwide with the blockbuster J-horror classic Ring and its sequel, director Hideo Nakata returned to the genre for Dark Water, another highly atmospheric, and critically acclaimed, tale of the supernatural which took the common theme of the “dead wet girl” to new heig...

Burst City is an explosive Molotov cocktail of dystopian sci-fi, Mad Max-style biker wars against yakuza gangsters and the police, and riotous performances from members of the real-life Japanese punk bands The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers and INU. In a derelict industrial wasteland somewhere...

Miike's 2002 retelling transplants the story to Tokyo at the turn of the millennium. Less a direct remake of Fukasaku's film than a radical reimagining of the same overarching premise, Miike's film captures both the hedonism and nihilism of the modern Japanese crime scene in deliriously stylish f...

Tapping into the same brand of terror as the Ring and Grudge movies, visionary director Takashi Miike ('Audition', 'Blade of the Immortal') presents a modern, high-tech twist on that mainstay of Japanese folklore, the yurei or vengeful spirit, in the form of its own iconic antihero - the terrifyi...

2016 ･ Japan ･ Directed by Takashi Miike

In an attempt to colonise Mars, 21st-century scientists seed the planet with algae to absorb sunlight and purify the atmosphere, and cockroaches who in turn spread the algae as they feed. 500 years later, the first manned mission to Mars loses contact wit...

Medical student Hirosuke Hitomi slips out of the asylum in which he has been wrongfully confined and stealthily assumes the identity of a recently deceased nobleman with whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Hirosuke eases his way into the nobleman's household and his dead double's marital bed. B...

From the outrageous imagination of cult director Teruo Ishii (Orgies of Edo, Horrors of Malformed Men) comes this infamous omnibus of three shocking tales of crime and punishment based on true-life documented cases set during the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate.

The first tale sees the beautifu...

Legendary Toei director Teruo Ishii tells three stories of moral sickness set during Japan's prosperous Genroku era in this bloody follow-up to his sexploitation classic Shogun's Joy of Torture, and the fourth entry in Toei's 'abnormal love' film series. Ishii's politically incorrect moral lesson...

2005 • Japan • Directed by Renpei Tsukamoto

A Japanese restaurant cook/owner dies after answering his daughter's cellphone. Other people are getting strange, same ringtone calls as well and dying painfully. It happened in Taiwan as well. Can the police stop it if it's a ghost?

Exploitation legend Teruo Ishii (Horrors of Malformed Men, Orgies of Edo) delivers one of his most extreme visions of violent eroticism in this, the sixth in his abnormal love series. Tattoos and torture await women forced into servitude in Ishii's Inferno of Torture. Unable to repay a local lend...

2006 • Japan • Directed by Manabu Asô

The timid, young Asuka is bullied by her classmates. When they embark on a class field trip to Korea, Asuka plans revenge by sending them a cursed phone message they can either pass on or die.

2003 • Japan • Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto

Rinko and Shigehiko are a strange couple, who connect as human beings but not lovers. They live more like friends and lead nearly independent lives. Both seem comfortable with this coexistence until Rinko receives a package of candid photographs of her...

Lake of Dracula begins with a young girl suffering a terrifying nightmare of a vampire with blazing golden eyes. Eighteen years later, the dream is revealed to be a hellish prophecy when a strange package containing an empty coffin mysteriously turns up at a nearby lake.

New visual essay on the career of Kitamura by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp.

In Evil of Dracula, a professor takes up a new post at an all-girls school only to discover the school's principle conceals a dark secret and the pupils are in grave danger.

An appreciation by Japanese cinema historian Tony Rayns

1970 • Japan • Directed by Teruo Ishii

From Teruo Ishii “The King of Cult”, Blind Woman’s Curse (also known as Black Cat’s Revenge) is a thrilling Yakuza film featuring eye-popping visuals, sensational fight sequences and the gorgeous Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Stray Cat Rock), in her first maj...

1975 • Japan • Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba is a martial arts "manimal" in the ultra-70's, 100% bizarre mixture of horror, action and sci-fi that is Wolf Guy, one of the rarest and most sought-after cult films produced by Japan's Toei Studio. Based on a manga by Kazumasa...

Sequel to 'Tetsuo', this time has the Iron Man transforming into a cyber-kinetic gun when a gang of vicious skinheads kidnap his son. When the skinheads capture him, they begin to experiment on him... speeding up the mutative process!

Goda (Shinya Tsukamoto) is a thirty-something documentary filmmaker. While his work may seem intriguing to some, his life is absolutely average - long hours at the office, drinks after work and an equally busy girlfriend: Kiriko, that he's been with for a decade. No surprises. No detours. No shoc...

Kotoko (pop star Cocco in her first starring role) is a young mother struggling to raise her young son Daijiro. Her grip on reality is shaky at best. Through her narration we quickly learn she sees double of everyone, one good and one evil. The problem is she can't tell which one is real, and is ...