Big Man Japan / Dai Nihon-gin (2007)

A documentary crew is filming a rather drab man called Daisato as he goes about his daily activities. He never goes anywhere without his folding umbrella and lives alone in a dumpy little home, He is the essence of the temp worker, for he must constantly be on call with only a tiny retainer. When …

Nightmare Detective / Akumu tantei (2006)

We first meet Kagenuma, the Nightmare Detective (Ryuhei Matsuda), with an in joke about J-Horror itself. He has entered the nightmares of Oishi, an old man who keeps a long black wig on the wall and seems to be haunted by it. Kagenuma explains the nightmares, but Oishi prefers to stay in the dream world …

Doppelganger / Dopperugenga (2003)

Japanese movies have a long tradition of starting in one direction and then suddenly changing tone to go a completely unexpected way, but rarely have they taken the turns to be found in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Doppelganger. The doppelganger, of course, has long been a subject of horror stories and films, usually in the manner of …

Snake of June / Rokugatsu no hebi (2003*)

Some movies you watch and some movies you experience; despite being visually one of the most tightly and carefully crafted movies of all time, Shinya Tsukamoto's A Snake of June is a movie you experience. In a remarkable characterization by Asuka Kurosawa, Rinko seems to be a well-adjusted woman in her thirties. She works as …

Drowning Man / Oboreru hito (2001)

IMDB lists Drowning Man as a horror movie, but it is far from that. A salaryman Tokio finds his wife Kumiko has drowned in the bath. He brings her to the sofa and tries to revive her, but he does not call an ambulance. After drinking himself into a stupor, he wakes to find she …

Cure / (1997)

Ironically, there is no cure to be found for the question continually asked in Cure – Who are you? This marks it as one of the most disturbing, significant, and haunting horror films from any nation. Like most of us, Takabe answers the question with his job – “I am a detective” – but the …

World Apartment Horror (1991)

Japan's post-war surge to prosperity naturally attracted a number of immigrants, many of whom had come from territories Japan had occupied earlier in the century, especially Korea and Taiwan. Chance has thrown a bunch of them together in a dumpy apartment building that the yakuza want to raze to build something new. Ita is ordered …

Guard from Underground / Jigoku no keibin (1992)

Like Sweet Home, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Guard from Underground* looks to Euro/American horror as its inspiration. We find a small number of people in a constricted environment being pursued and gradually killed, but instead of the Japanese traditional demonic force out for revenge, we have the psycho at large who was so prevalent in the eighties …

Hiruko the Goblin / Yokai Hunter: Hiruko / Yokai hanta: Hiruko (1991)

As the Japanese title indicates, Hiruko is the story of Hieda, an archeologist trying to hunt yokai in order to prove they are real. His brother-in-law finds the entrance to a sacred tomb of Hiruko and asks Hieda to come help open it. When Hieda arrives he finds the brother-in-law and a young girl missing …

Sweet Home / Suito homu (1989)

Though basically an ignored genre flick at the time, Sweet Home was extremely significant historically. It served as the foundation for one of the earliest popular video games for home players, which due to a later loss of naming rights would later be called the Resident Evil games and movies.* More importantly for non-gamers, it …