Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani
The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of technology for a chilling experience unlike anything that had come before. A group of teenage friends are found dead, their bodies grotesquely contorted, their faces twisted in terror. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), a journalist and the aunt of one of the victims, sets out to investigate the shocking phenomenon, and in the process uncovers a creepy urban legend about a supposedly cursed videotape, the contents of which cause anyone who views it to die within a week—unless they can persuade someone else to watch it, and, in so doing, pass on the curse.
Up Next in Horror
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The Velvet Vampire
Directed by Stephanie Rothman • 1971 • United States
Starring Celeste Yarnall, Michael Blodgett, Sherry E. DeBoerToeing the line between exploitation and art cinema, Stephanie Rothman’s follow-up to her hit THE STUDENT NURSES deconstructs vampire mythology with a subversive feminist spirit and ...
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Audition
Directed by Takashi Miike • 1999 • Japan
Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki MatsudaIn one of the most notorious horror films ever made, recent widower Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) sets out to find a new wife by staging an “audition.” Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu becomes encha...
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Ichi the Killer
Directed by Takashi Miike • 2001 • Japan
Starring Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya TsukamotoVisceral, bloody, and often hilarious, Takashi Miike’s gonzo gore opera (an adaptation of the manga by Hideo Yamamoto) is one of the most influential and notorious genre films of the twenty-first centur...
