The most terrifying month of the year is upon us, which means it’s of grave importance to start scheduling obscure horror movies into your watchlist – miss the mark this Halloween and who knows what terrible consequences could occur! Fortunately for those scared stiff by this prospect, we have got you covered, with an arsenal of eerie movies from Japan’s storied filmmaking canon that show there’s more to Japanese horror than supernatural folklore and long-haired ghosts (although there’s nothing wrong with those, either). 

Read on to find everything from found footage classics to Poe-esque tales of the occult, as well as surrealist anime and even an ultra-gory video nasty. Many of these cult classics are receiving their first-ever UK releases this month, so there’s no better time to rediscover them.

PULSE (KIYOSHI KUROSAWA, 2001)

One of the figureheads of the ‘J-Horror’ boom that took place at the turn of the century, Kiyoshi Kurosawa may well be the greatest Japanese horror filmmaker of all time. His ability to conjure an atmosphere of absolute foreboding – still palpable in his latest gritty, Venice-approved thriller Cloud (premiering in the UK via London East Asia Film Festival on Nov 2) – is simply unmatched among his peers. 

While the universal acclaim afforded to 1997 psychological masterpiece Cure tends to overshadow his wider filmography, it’s his 2001 film Pulse that remains his most primally unsettling work. Drawing on vivid themes of loneliness and Y2K technophobia, this grey, washed-out mystery concerns a series of young men and women who disappear from their homes after receiving cryptic messages on their home computers. As those searching for them encounter mysterious black stains pointing to otherworldly connections, the city’s entire population begins to vanish, sparking an existential crisis among the last isolated individuals.

Screening at the Prince Charles Cinema on Nov 11
Streaming via Amazon Prime, Apple TV and the Arrow Video Player

UZUMAKI (HIROSHI NAGAHAMA, 2024)

When it comes to horror manga, no figure looms larger over the genre than Junji Ito, a master of the macabre whose vivid, often Lovecraftian works – like succubus student serial Tomie and the grotesque, apocalyptic Gyo – have garnered him a cult following worldwide.

In October 2024, a highly-anticipated black-and-white anime miniseries based on his most famously unsettling work has just debuted on Channel 4’s online streaming platform following a turbulent five-year development. Uzumaki, which dwells on eerie images of helical snail shells, jack-in-the-box springs and hypnotic pottery wheels, chronicles the descent into madness of a rural Japanese town plagued by spirals that induce horrifying transformations in its residents.

Despite a drop-off in animation quality following the widely-praised debut episode (Adult Swim exec Jason DeMarco claimed the production was “screwed over” in a now-deleted social media post), the four-part show is still an effective showcase in bringing Ito’s escalating dread to life. Elsewhere, the 2023 Netflix anime series Junji Ito Maniac adapts other highlights from the celebrated mangaka’s canon with mixed results, whereas the 2000 live-action adaption of Uzumaki can be streamed on Shudder.

Streaming via 4oD

THE SNOW WOMAN (TOKUZŌ TANAKA, 1968)

Japan’s cinematic Golden Age of the 50s and 60s was rife with tales of vengeful ghosts and supernatural entities, drawing heavily from folklore and traditional Kabuki theatre. In fact, spooky classics like Kwaidan and Onibaba (both streaming on Amazon Prime and the BFI Player) are among the most iconic Japanese films of the era, celebrated for their meticulous production values and haunting narratives.  

A lesser-known but no less stirring example of this rich sub-genre is The Snow Woman, which adapts a story from the same Lafcadio Hearn collection that inspired Kwaidan. It arrives in the UK for the first time this October via Radiance Films, thanks to a stunning new 4K restoration that emphasises its sumptuous, icy cinematography and an eerie soundtrack full of howling winds and screeching chimes (the work of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube).

The movie conjures a chilling atmosphere right from the offset. In the midst of a powerful blizzard, a narrator recounts the legend of the Snow Woman – who, on nights of heavy snowfall, wanders the mountains vowing to kill anyone who should catch sight of her. One night, two woodcutters witness a wispy white figure with piercing golden eyes roaming the tundra outside their mountain cabin. It would seem that their fate is sealed until one of the men is curiously spared…

GUTS OF A BEAUTY (KAZUO 'GAIRA' KOMIZU, 1986)

At the extreme opposite end of the spectrum is this dubious low-budget artefact from the sordid underbelly of the late 80s film industry.

This was a curious time for independent cinema in Japan. As ultraviolent exploitation films such as the notorious Guinea Pig torture porn series were being manufactured for the booming video market, Japan’s sordid sex film industry was continuing to push the boundaries of taste – and occasionally these two genres converged in a manner that only compounded the levels of perversion. Shocking productions like Guts of a Beauty – also known as Entrails of a Beautiful Woman – were often the result.

There’s no point beating around the bush: this is basically pornography, with profoundly disturbing scenes of sexual assault, goopy hospital bed ejaculations and graphic, silhouetted blow jobs defining much of the narrative. The movie – concerning sadistic gangsters and kidnapped women for the most part – takes an even sleazier turn when a blood-drenched reanimated corpse shows up, sparking a series of preposterously gruesome killings involving dismemberment, head-crushing and a giant penis monster. Viewer discretion advised. 

Available on Blu-ray via 88 Films

NOROI: THE CURSE (KŌJI SHIRAISHI, 2005)

At the opening of Noroi: The Curse, the image of an unmarked VHS cassette appears on screen with an ominous disclaimer: this document contains the final research of a journalist recently declared missing following the death of his wife in a house fire. He had been exploring a series of bizarre phenomena involving the sounds of crying children, unexplained animal deaths, and the disappearance of a young girl – and his findings are chronicled herein. Playback begins on a tape deemed “too disturbing for public viewing”, and a disturbing investigation unfolds. 

Produced by Takashige Ichise, Noroi: The Curse takes the found footage formula popularised by The Blair Witch Project and applies it to a creepy setting in suburban Japan. The resulting “documentary” builds an unsettling atmosphere through grainy handheld camerawork and realistic performances from non-actors, assembling door-to-door interviews, home videos and taped TV footage for the viewer to draw their own uneasy conclusions. Coveted by Western horror fans in the years since its low-key release in Japan despite receiving limited overseas distribution, this cult classic now heads up a timely new box set from Arrow Films this October, titled ‘J-Horror Rising’.

Streaming via Shudder and ARROW from Oct 28

Available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films from Oct 28

DOGRA MAGRA (TOSHIO MATSUMOTO, 1988)

At a remote psychiatric institution in 1920s Japan, a boy awakens in a yellow-painted cell to the sounds of a woman calling out from the room next door. He can’t remember a thing of his recent past – not his name, nor even his own face – but he’s cryptically informed that he’s been through a “hideous incident” involving a bride who was murdered on her wedding night. As the boy attempts to put the pieces together, he’s bombarded with bizarre hallucinations and contradictory information from an eccentric doctor who was rumoured to have committed suicide the day prior – and in his search for the truth, the lines between reality and delusion begin to blur.

This experimental fantasy from Toshio Matsumoto – best known for his queer, avant-garde 1969 arthouse classic Funeral Parade of Roses – conjures an intoxicating and dreamlike atmosphere through its disorientating long takes and golden colour filter. With an eerie asylum setting built on images of babies in jars, severed hands and mummified cat heads, the resulting film is a twisted Gothic oddball that evokes the sanity-questioning storytelling of Edgar Allen Poe; it arrives in the UK for the first time this month via cinephile distributors Radiance Films.

Available on Blu-ray via Radiance Films

INUGAMI (MASATO HARADA, 2001)

Another inclusion on Arrow’s nostalgic ‘J-Horror Rising’ collection is this rural folk drama from Masato Harada; an underrated director responsible for several great works in the 90s such as the poignant yakuza drama Kamikaze Taxi. The slow-burning but visually sumptuous Inugami is ultimately scarce on actual frights, but brimming with a mystical atmosphere augmented by its rich setting, deep in the Japanese countryside.

The film concerns superstitious families, strange dreams, incestuous relationships and an ancient ancestral curse that’s causing feuds in a pictorial forest village in the mountains. Sweeping aerial shots of verdant greenery and winding country roads showcase the film’s meticulous cinematography, while surreal visions of a baby emerging from a vat of white liquid point to something strange going on behind the scenes. A box office failure in Japan at the time of its initial release, it’s ripe for rediscovery today as an overlooked relic of the early 00s J-Horror trend.

Streaming via Shudder and ARROW from Oct 28

Available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films from Oct 28