meta: Horror
2021
'Evil Dead Trap 2: Hideki': The Lady Killers June 07, 2021
A deeply unappreciated David Lynch-esque jolter, from two major writers of anime live-action adaptations; a horror-feminist project that deserves reexamination with fresh eyes
0 Comments
'Evil Dead Trap': Monster In The House May 31, 2021
A classic 1980s Japanese horror effort, a ferocious Dario Argento homage that invents at least as much as it borrows or nods at
0 Comments
'Serial Experiments Lain': The Wired And The Weird April 25, 2021
Now that we're all wired, whether we like it or not, this cyberpunk urban legend and vaporwave precursor is even creepier and more prescient
0 Comments
'ID': Beastly Flesh March 25, 2021
Kei Fujiwara's sequel to 'Organ' ends up being more merely unpleasant than unsettling
0 Comments
'Organ': Grotesquerie In Red March 16, 2021
Kei Fujiwara's symphony of sickness drowns you face-down in its excesses and lingers for a long time to come afterwards
0 Comments
'The Strange Tale Of Panorama Island': He's So Unreal March 08, 2021
Suehiro Maruo's rendition of Edogawa Rampo's tale of wide-gauge decadence is both delirious and spot-on in its look and feel
0 Comments
2020
'Versus': No Budget, All Ambition, Total Excess December 18, 2020
Twenty years later, Ryūhei Kitamura's pulp-horror gumbo of Lucio Fulci, Sam Raimi, George Miller, and everything in between remains a micro-budget, J-indie milestone
0 Comments
'Vital': The Weight Of The Dead, And Of The Living November 10, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's dark drama about a medical student obsessed with the cadaver of a lost love becomes a moving meditation on how life and death inform each other
0 Comments
'A Snake Of June': A Love (And Death) Triangle October 05, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's eros-and-thanatos story doesn't always work, but gets an A+ for dazzling effort anyway
0 Comments
'Gemini': Of Self And Other August 28, 2020
Shinya Tsukamoto's seething, psychedelic adaptation of Edogawa Rampo's work remains one of his best films
0 Comments
'Boogiepop': The Antibody Has A Voice August 03, 2020
Kouhei Kadono's knotty novels walk us backwards through the tangled stories surrounding a being that arises just long enough to right the world when it has fallen out of joint
0 Comments
'The Adventures Of Denchu Kozo'/'Haze': Shorter Tsukamoto June 15, 2020
Two short films from Shinya Tsukamoto, now anthologized in the Arrow box set for the director, show off his cheeky-humored and bending-sinister sides
0 Comments
2019
Junji Ito's 'No Longer Human': No Longer Dazai December 23, 2019
A manga horror icon takes on a classic of modern Japanese literature, and makes it his own in ways both fascinating and baleful
0 Comments
Gō Tanabe's 'At The Mountains Of Madness': Horror's Human And Inhuman Faces December 16, 2019
Gō Tanabe's two-volume adaptation of Lovecraft's classic novella shouldn't be missed by fans of that writer, by lovers of comic adaptations, or by those who want to see manga at its best
0 Comments
'Izo': Takashi Miike's Death (And Resurrection) Mantra November 11, 2019
Even longtime Takashi Miike fans were alienated by this mix of Miike's fetishes, 'Slaughterhouse-Five', and William S. Burroughs's space-age shamanism, but it deserves fresh eyes and open minds
0 Comments
'Tomie': The Infinite Bad Penny August 12, 2019
Like all great horror, Junji Ito's now-classic series about an undying supernatural siren has something to say other than "boo!"
0 Comments
Katsuhiro Ōtomo's 'Domu': A Child's Book Of Nightmares July 15, 2019
A shame that any of Katsuhiro Ōtomo's work should still be out of print, especially this precusor to 'AKIRA' that pits psionic warriors against each other in a high-rise apartment complex
0 Comments
'Tetsuo II: Body Hammer': Metamorphoses May 20, 2019
Shinya Tsukamoto's follow-up (side-quel?) to his immortal debut is not quite as arresting or inspired, but it has many fascinating aspects all the same
0 Comments
'Tetsuo: The Iron Man': Full Metal Mutation May 16, 2019
Thirty years later, Shinya Tsukamoto's frenzied masterwork of cyberpunk body horror still seethes like nothing else on film
0 Comments
Bonten Taro's 'Badass Babe! Sex & Fury & Other Stories': The Girl With The Hanafuda Tattoo April 20, 2019
An eclectic collection of manga work from a tattoo artist, folk singer, and quasi-underworld figure until now only marginally known in the West
0 Comments
