When the idea of Japanese horror cinema comes up, most people think of a scary girl with long black hair covering her face, slow creeping curses that eventually consume the hapless protagonist, or rampant yokai. Haunted houses, families in danger, and tense accumulations of fears are what the genre is known for.
However, there is so much more to Japanese horror cinema than pale, ghostly girls. There are also incredible offers from Japan in the slasher genre. Some contain supernatural elements, others are dark psychological thrillers, while still others completely subvert the slasher genre.
It’s almost impossible to talk about Japanese horror cinema without mentioning Takashi Miike. Adapted from a novel by Yusuke Kishi, this 2012 slasher follows Seiji Hasumi, a high school teacher who decides that rampant bullying and violence at his school must be curbed by any means necessary. The truth about Hasumi is that he is a dangerous and intelligent sociopath who has been killing people for fun since childhood, including his parents.
The film becomes a tangled web of blackmail, murder and manipulation as Hasumi pits students and teachers against each other. He disguises his murders as suicides, spreading gossip and rumours, and eventually leads to a full-blown massacre. The film was not well received upon release, which is why it didn’t get much attention outside of Japan. However, it is worth looking at the stylish imagery and performance of the lead role.
2010 slasher black ratDirected by Kenta Fukasaku, sees a group of students receive a mysterious message to meet in Class 3B at midnight. The six students gather and are confronted by a girl in school uniform wearing a black rat mask. The figure does not speak and communicates only by writing.
Forty-nine days earlier, Asuka, a member of the group’s class, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of the school wearing a black rat mask. All she’d wanted was to put on a production of a rat-themed cultural dance for the school festival, and the group started bullying her, humiliating her, and throwing her homemade mask in the trash. Now the teens are trapped in the school with a killer determined to avenge Asuka’s death. As the students are brutally sent away, the question remains: is Asuka’s ghost back for revenge?
Evil Dead Trap was released in 1988, and despite its name and frequent misunderstandings to the contrary, the film is unrelated to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. Instead, Evil Dead Trap is a bizarre slasher in which TV host Nami Tsuchiya innocently asks her audience to send home movies to her show. In response, she gets a snuff film in which the brutal murder of a woman can be seen. The film’s location appears to be a nearby industrial area, and Nami and her television crew set out to investigate.
Of course, once they start investigating, the crew is brutally murdered one by one until Nami is left alone with the killer roaming the building. In a twist to the story, the killer is a disfigured conjoined twin Hideki whose twin brother seems totally oblivious to his murderous brother’s habits, despite being attached at the hip. Fans of rarities from the 80s basket case will love this strange and cheeky offer.
Also known as The guard from hell, this 1992 slasher is a tale of obsession that slowly turns into murder. Akiko starts her new job as an art buyer and almost immediately runs into Fujimaru, the company’s security guard. What Akiko and the rest of the company don’t know is that this mountain of one man is a former sumo wrestler under investigation for the second time for the murder of his lover and friend.
Fujimaru becomes obsessed with Akiko. He finds one of her earrings and wears it all the time, creating a shrine for her in the basement of the building and watching her every move. Eventually, his obsession becomes all-consuming, prompting him to cut off the phones and power to the building. Akiko and the other workers must survive as the hulking madman searches for Akiko.
Seven years after their school’s AV Club closed following the disappearance of one member and another’s severe nervous breakdown, students Maki and Ai decide to restart the club and create their horror film based on the events. Together with three other girls, they travel to the Yuai House. Once there, Maki and Ai show an 8mm tape of someone wearing a Noh mask killing their opponent with a meat cleaver.
The girls want to base their film on that, but things quickly go wrong. The car won’t start and their phones and all their food disappear along with the Noh mask and cleaver that was intended as props in their project. Soon, someone in the Noh mask starts stalking the students, who are stuck in the middle of nowhere with no supplies and only a creepy snuff movie for company.
0 Comments