Movies - TV
The 28 Best Japanese Horror Movies Of All Time
By MARY BETH MCANDREWS And BEE SCOTT
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
"Tetsuo: The Iron Man" chronicles the life of a salaryman whose reality melds with that of a metal fetishist, who loves to insert metal into his skin to the point that maggots squirm in his infected flesh. Filled with graphic violence and gore, the film is ultimately a love story between the two men who crave the unholy union of flesh and cold steel.
Kwaidan
"Kwaidan," (translated to "ghost story”) is a 1964 horror anthology film based on Lafcadio Hearn's collection of Japanese folktales. It dives into traditional Japanese ghost stories, be it a samurai who regrets leaving his wife, the murder of a woodcutter by an angry spirit, a blind musician targeted by a non-human family, or a man who sees faces in his tea.
Marebito
“Marebito” is about a nervous man who becomes obsessed with filming the world around him after watching a man commit suicide. In his quest, he ends up “saving” a young woman chained to a wall, but after spending some time with the woman who doesn’t eat, drink, or talk, he realizes he should have left her where he found her (hint: we’re in vampire territory).
Tag
In "Tag," student Mitsuki is the sole survivor of a horrific accident, during which a gust of wind cuts her bus — and her classmates — in half. That sets the scene for a ridiculous story that, while being gory, is shockingly feminist, and involves multiple dimensions, mistaken identities, machine gun-wielding teachers, and much more.
Onibaba
"Onibaba" is set in 14th-century Japan, where an old woman and her daughter-in-law murder soldiers and loot their bodies to survive during the civil war, but their neighbour’s return from war leads to a strange love triangle that threatens their way of life. The film is full of tension with a dash of supernatural and adapts classic Japanese folklore to honor the past.