No Sleep till Tokyo: Essential J-Horror Films you shouldn’t watch alone

Everyone’s got their thing: for some people it’s slasher movies, for others it’s creepy-looking revenge spirits. I fall into the latter category. Given that it’s j-horror month, I’d like to celebrate by re-introducing a few of my favourite horror movies that deal with yurei.

Even if you’ve never heard the word “yurei” before, you’d probably know one if you saw one: the white shoudlike dress, the long, matted black hair, and the penchant for indiscriminately killing anything and everything they come in contact with after a certain amount of time. It’s a very particular type of spirit that originates from the Edo period in Japan. They’re characterized by the fact that some injustice was carried out against them in life, and they’re taking their revenge in death because they can’t rest.

Films like The Ring and The Grudge find their origins in Japanese franchises, but it’s really hard to ignore the original films that inspired the american remakes. In a lot of cases, the originals are even scarier.

Summaries from IMDB. Check them out:

Ju-On

A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.

Ringu

Ruthlessly murdered by her father, the ghost of a seer’s daughter kills all those who watch a weird video after 7 days; unless the viewer finds the escape clause.

Noroi

A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon called the “kagutaba.”

Kairo (Pulse)

Two groups of people discover evidence that suggests spirits may be trying to invade the human world through the Internet.

https://youtu.be/JyDf4igNJ38

Teke Teke

A young girl learns of the urban legend of Teke Teke after her friend is killed in a gruesome way. The legend tells of a female ghost that has no legs. When she visits the spot where her friend died she comes into contact with it.

Happy watching!