He Had to Die (1956)
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Version of Yotsuya Kaidan.
Japan, 250 years ago. Soetsu is a moneylender who is killed by the cruel samurai Shinzaemon. His body is dumped in the Kasenega-Fuchi river. According to legend, all who drown in the river will never surface again. 20 Years later, Shinkichi, the handsome son of Shinzaemon, coincidentally meets Toyoshiga, the daughter of Soetsu. They fall in love. It is a doomed love, as the spirit of Soetsu is far from dead
Four short films based on ghost stories written by award winning modern Japanese writers Yasunari Kawabata, Osamu Dazai, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, & Saisei Muro.
This film is about the curse of a jealous woman destroying the lovers on the run.
A film about the Ghost of Okiku that's based on the kabuki play Bancho Sarayashiki.
While transporting a bride-to-be in a closed carriage (kago) while during a thunderstorm, a group of servants and onlookers suddenly come upon an apparition of a ghostly white-draped female figure floating down to the ground. As she turns to face the crowd, the woman reveals the disfigured right side of her face. As the procession stands in utter horror, the ghost then takes flight again and down a side street. After the shock wears off, the bride is checked on and everyone is safe in the group. Once the wedding party finally arrives at the groom's home, they apologize for the delay... and proceed to open the kago, only to realize that the bride-to-be is now missing... and all that's left in the carriage is a single white snake slithering about.
Nominated for Golden Berlin Bear.
It's a film version of the known legend about Kiyohime and the monk Anchin.
This is the film adaptation of four stories from the book "Kwaidan: Stories and studies of strange things" by Lafcadio Hearn and is actually a collection of Japanese ghost stories, taken from various sources, some even stemming from China.
Akemi is a dragon tattooed leader of the Tachibana Yakuza clan. In a duel with a rival gang Akemi slashes the eyes of an opponent and a black cat appears, to lap the blood from the gushing wound. The cat along with the eye-victim go on to pursue Akemiâs gang in revenge, leaving a trail of dead Yakuza girls, their dragon tattoos skinned from their bodies.
Painter is leaving for awhile his family to paint dragons in rich man's house. Lonely ruthless samurai fall in love with his wife and rape her. Samurai attack and kill all of painter's servants and drown them in lake. Ghosts of painters and servants return to world of living to take revenge on samurai and help newborn baby of painter to escape the death. Painter's ghost after revenge finished his dragons and disappeared. The story of this movie is typical for kaidan movies of that period but visually is very valuable product for all Japanese horror lovers.
The ghost of a samurai's wife takes revenge on her husband.
Kaidan directed by Katsuhiko Tasaka.
A master sculptor and his apprentice are trapped in a bad snow storm after finding a special tree for carving a statue for the local temple. Finding refuge in an abandoned hut they celebrate their luck in finding the tree but soon they are visited by the Snow Witch who freezes the sculptor to death but takes pity on the apprentice. He must promise to never speak of this or she'll return and kill him.
Yotsuya Kaidan, the story of Oiwa and Tamiya Iemon, is a tale of betrayal, murder and ghostly revenge. Arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time, it has been adapted for film over 30 times, and continues to be an influence on Japanese horror today.Written in 1825 by Tsuruya Nanboku IV as a kabuki play, the original title was TÅkaidÅ Yotsuya Kaidan.
A 14-year-old orphan named Krabat flees the horrors of the 30 Years War by becoming an apprentice to an ominous master of a mysterious mill. Krabat is not only taught the craft of milling, but is also instructed in the sinister world of the darker arts. When the life of his friend and protector is threatened, Krabat must struggle to free himself from an evil sorcerer's control in a gripping fight for freedom, friendship and love.
During a fever, Tateo, the male protagonist believes he is dying and has the hallucination that his beautiful wife, Reiko (Tamaki Katori), the daughter of a wealthy family, is having an affair w/ another man. He then tells her an ancient Chinese story: the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wanted to test the faithfulness of his wife, so he faked his own death; the wife was grief-stricken and went into mourning. While funeral arrangements were in progress, a handsome young man came to call on Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi's wife soon fell into love w/ the young man and decided to marry hi. However, the young man fell ill; his servant said that the only medicine to cure him is human brain. Zhuangzi's wife eventually decided to break his husband's coffin and take his brain. However the young man turns out be Zhuangzi in disguise.
Misa Kuroi is an adorable high-school girl who arrives at her new school when it is falling under an evil supernatural force. Trying to figure out who's behind the supernatural attack, Misa also has to deal with assumptions by her fellow classmates that believe she is the one behind it all. Misa and twelve other students are kept late after school hours one day to retake an exam. Then, after sunset, the entire school is deserted, and the students find themselves trapped inside and their teacher no where to be found. One by one, the thirteen students are picked up and disposed of in horrific and graphic fashion. It is up to Misa to try and gain the trust of her fellow students so that she can protect them and stop the evil before it's too late.
Horror filmed directed by Kinya Ogawa.
The chief characters in "Botan Dôrô" are Otsuyu, a beautiful maiden in love with Hagiwara Shinsaburô. There is also the young lady's maid, and a picturesque evildoer, Tomozô.
Horror film directed by Eiichi Koishi.
A store manager named Kinbei becomes enraged when the owners of the store decide to hand it down to an adopted son instead of him. He hatches a plot to murder them all, but as it turns out he has done this sort of thing before. As bodies pile up in the nearby Kagami Pond, a ghostly vengeance is about to be unleashed.
Horror movie directed by Kinnosuke Fukada.
In a remote fortress, a sinister sorority of surgically skilled sisters lie in wait of their next victim. They control a bevy of caged women who have been brain washed and sponge-batherto become the worlds most anatomically awesome surgeons. This is the git-wrenching story of one innocent girl, Sabrina, who finds herself trapped in a living nightmare. Captive to a slavery ring that is training an
Follows the murder of a money-lending masseur by an impoverished samurai. The slain masseur's daughter will also fall victim to his curse, so that she can become empowered as an agent of her father's vengeance.
Julia finds 300 million pesetas hidden in a dead man's house while selling an apartment. She's a 40-ish real estate agent now forced to face the wrath of a very peculiar community (of neighbors), headed by an unscrupulous administrator. Black humor gives way to suspense, closely followed by horror that doesn't take long in coming to a head in undisguised pandemonium.
Horror film directed by Satoru Kobayashi. Kin'ya Ogawa served as Kobayashi's assistant on this film.
Nishina Saburouta is powerful but corrupted priest. One night, an old samurai who couldn't bear him any more, attempts to kill him, but without success. Saburouta is rescued by his niece, Keisuke at the last moment. Keisuke is a a good-for-nothing. Since that event, he always turns to his uncle when he needs money. Recently Keisuke feels his uncle isn't as generous as he used to be, he suspects that Saburouta has found out the illicit relation between Keisuke and his uncle's young mistress, Ohasu.
Horror film directed by Koji Shima.
About 1786 the doings of a demented lord results in many masturless samurai, including Iyemon (Kei Sato, who makes a wonderful bad guy) who is used to luxury and cannot adjust to the hand-to-mouth conditions & piecework of umbrella making. Having hired ruffians to make him look like a superior swordsman, he arranges for himself the opportunity of a profitable marriage. He hires the half-blind masseur Takuetsu (Sawamura Sounosuke) to seduce or rape his wife (Kyoko Mikage), so that she can be divorced or killed for adultery. But the masseur takes pity & informs Oiwa of her husband's horrid plot. Assisted by the merchant's daughter he intends to marry, Iyemon disfigures his wife attempting to poison her so he an marry higher. There's a lovingly gruesome sequence as she combs blad patches into her hair, kneeling deformed at her mirror, weeping with bitterness. She eventually cuts her own throat, swearing revenge.
In medical school of an elite university, campus starts sown with corpses. The police have no clue who is responsible for the carnage. Nobody suspected Barbara, a beautiful young innocent looking whose only concern seems to be the fashion. However, under the facade of frivolity, hides the most lethal and unforgiving of the killer: Barbykiller, the psychopath who reinvents the term "fashion victim".
Horror film directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda.
Version of Botan DÅrÅ.
In a small college town, a young girl working on a babysitting job in a rural farm is terrorized throughout the night.
"Cruel Ghost Legend"
Third installment of the "Gakko No Kaidan" series follows the trek of several elementary school students as they wander into an alternate world that exists on the opposite side of a school mirror. Nishida Naomi (the hapless teacher in "Gakko No Kaidan 2") returns as the teacher who accompanies the children on their journey into the surreal universe.
A quintessential example of the period "ghost cat" (bakeneko or kaibyo) movie, this was one of at least six such titles released by the studio Shinko Kinema between 1937-40 featuring Japan's first scream queen, Sumiko Suzuki. Here she plays Mitsue, the possessive onna-kabuki actress betrothed to apprentice shamisen player Seijiro. When one day Okiyo, a beautiful young girl of samurai class, is led to Seijiro's house by his lost cat Kuro, she becomes besotted with him. Dark jealous passions are invoked in Mitsue, which are intensified when Seijiro gifts Okiyo his precious shamisen. The cat is the first to suffer at the end of Mitsue's hairpin, but returns from the grave to assist Okiyo's younger sister Onui avenge her sister's murder.
Iemon Tamiya is an impoverished masterless samurai who craves a better life, which he cannot have because of his marriage to Oiwa, who is completely devoted to her husband.
Tanuma Kandayuu is a high class samurai of the house of Nabeshima. He finds a lavish board of Go (a sort of Japanese board game like chess or checker) at Kinbei's store. He recommend Kinbei to offer it to his lord. Kinbei hesitates at first, since he knows the board has some weird history. It is beleived that one game played on the board requires one death. Finally Kinbei agrees. Lord Nabeshima likes the borad, and commands Matashichirou to play the game. Matashichirou is famous for being good at Go. But they didn't know that Matashichirou's father once had a serious trouble with his friend when they played Go on the board.
Okoyo is Lord Arima's concubine. She becomes jealous of her apparent successor, Otaki, and begins torturing her, eventually killing the girl. Otaki's cat licks her mistress's blood and becomes a vengeful demon.
The Lord of Okazaki is killed by his brother-in-law. Although the Lord's widow bears a child, she is also killed. Then, a ghost cat begins stalking in the castle.
A kabuki actress is murdered by poison. Her pet cat laps its mistress's blood and becomes a demon possessed by the vengeful murder victim.
A power struggle in the fief of Okazaki causes the death of Namiji, a nobleman's daughter. As her fiancé seeks revenge, he finds Namiji's cat helping him. Co-starring Shintarô Katsu and Takako Irie.
The actor Koheiji is terribly in love with the wife of his best friend, the playwright Takuro; to get her, he would even kill Takuro.
When a nobleman finds a woman to be an obstacle to his growing political influence, he kills her and her cat and has their bodies immured in a wall. Shortly afterwards, a catlike demon begins to haunt the castle.
Yumi Aoyama is now a girl diver in shallow waters to cut oysters and other shellfish delicacies, and eventually pearls, from the shallow underwater rocks, like so many poor girls of her village. She comes from a rich family, but the Aoyama's treasure has been buried in a great earthquake when she was a little girl, and with the treasure, her lost sister. Yumi tells Kyouko, a policewoman friend, that she has seen the ghost of her dead sister, telling her how to find the entrance to a cave where their family's treasure is. As Kyouko begins an investigation, she finds out that the ghost story is part of a conspiracy by a criminal gang, who is out looking for an easy way to access the enormous treasure. Girl divers' friendship and blood relations come to a halt when ghosts vanish and truth is exposed - culminating in some hand to hand fighting by the seashore.
The film begins strongly, with an atmospheric opening sequence, predating John Carpenter's The Fog by two decades, of shuffling ghost-like zombies, blood streaming from their faces, rising from the waves to drag the workers of a deserted shipyard,swirling with dry ice, to their doom. The ghost's main target however is the village kingpin, and employer of the local diving girls, Satomura (played by Juzaburo Akechi). When his wife and youngest daughter are abducted, it is up to his remaining daughter Nami (Banri) and her ama companions to get to the bottom of the mystery, which again revolves around sunken treasure and a gang of swarthy crooks.
Features a haunted well with yet another blind masseur's vengeful ghost.
A hunchbacked caretaker presides over a forlorn mansion inhabited by the ghosts of his previous masters. An unbelieving trio (a doctor, his assistant and his niece) fail to heed the caretaker's warnings and are slaughtered horribly by the jealous occupants.
1. A crash leaves a man dead, and his wife badly injured. Soon, he returns as a ghost to try to take her with him. 2. A caretaker wins the lottery thanks to the saucer spirit. Things begin to go wrong when he breaks his promise to it.
A group of teenagers unleash a curse when they use haunted public lockers in Shibuya. Supposedly, if you leave a gift in one of the lockers you will be lucky in love. However, the results are anything but lucky as a creepy female ghost with long black hair soon shows up to kill them off one by one.
Seconds before Reika (from the first movie) dies, she gives the key to a coin locker to her pupil Ayano. After a hunt for the right coin locker, Ayano finally finds the right one but she soon realizes that some things should be left alone. When some other students at her school finds the coin locker, the curse begins once again. The long haired girl is once again out to get anyone who's opened the coin locker.
Aimi and her father move into an old, apartment building and learn quickly that things are not as they seem.
Tsukimono - Ayumi Kirishima is a college student who has just completed her second interview with a prospective employer. Ayumi then takes a bus to get to class and comes across a creepy barefooted woman. When the woman startes shaking and hiccuping, Ayumi asks the woman if she is OK. The woman responds with a cryptic remark that hastens Ayumi's departure off the bus. Later that day, the creepy woman appears in front of a window in Ayumi's classroom. All the students become startled by her appearance... Nozomi - The memory of high school student Megumi Fujisawa's 11th birthday still haunts her to this day. On her 11th birthday, Megumi's younger sister Nozomi was found dead. Her younger sister drowned in a lake surrounded by the woods. Since her death, whenever Megumi's birthday approaches she experiences illusions and refuses to go to school. Those illusions attacks Megumi and becomes more fierce.
A horror/thriller about a team of Child Protective Services workers who investigate a series of bizarre child abuse cases in the small town of Daylight, IN. As the mystery unfolds, they discover the cases may actually be linked by demonic possession.
Harima Aoyama (Chiyonosuke Azume) was a young hatamoto (samurai bannerman) to the Shogun. He seduced his commoner house maid Okiku (Hibari). He promised that his love was no passing infatuation & she would never suffer for it. She resisted his charms for some while knowing full well that they are of classes that do not intermarry, but in time he broke down her resistance, for how could she help but love him. Political expedience puts the young hatamoto in the way of a marriage with a woman of his own station. This will cement family connections & see his family safely through a crisis, at a time when many clans were finding themselves abolished on any pretext.
A film producer who was adopted as a baby and sent to America, returns to her native Russia and the family farm. Once there, strange things begin to happen including the disappearance of her guide, the manifestation of ghosts (including her own!) and the appearance of another man who has been drawn to the farm for the same reasons.
When ex-colleague Peter de Beer is killed, detective De Cock is facing the ultimate challenge. Peterâs daughter Michaelle, a witness of the murder, is in shock and cannot help De Cock. But, does the killer also know this? Out of precaution De Cock takes the little crown witness under his wings. To his regrets he concludes that his past pursues him. The trail is leading to a couple of old-India travelers. These old but very tough men already prevented him to solve a murder case years ago. Also this time they try whatever is in their power to keep the murder covered up.
The film portrays Saint Peter reflecting on his time with Jesus and his fellow Apostles during his final imprisonment in Rome. In particular, Peter attempts to convert one of his jailers, Martinian, by relating the life, teachings, and sacrifice of Jesus.
A fatally shot female gangleader recounts her sordid life of crime to a police officer just before she dies.
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