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Captain America: Brave New World kept its grip on the top position at the South Korean box office for a second consecutive weekend, though it experienced a drop in earnings. Meanwhile, Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning, an animated horror thriller, made a solid debut, landing in second place.

Data from the Korean Film Council’s Kobis tracking service revealed that Captain America: Brave New World earned KRW3.1 billion ($2.2 million), securing 44% of the market share. The film, starring Anthony Mackie as the new Captain America, drew 316,146 viewers, bringing its total earnings to $9.2 million. Despite a strong performance, the film’s earnings saw a decline from its opening weekend.

In second place, Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning grossed $739,664, with 108,090 admissions. Directed by Kim Dong-chul, the film follows Father Park, an excommunicated priest who must protect a child with special powers from a corrupt master. The movie launched across 841 screens, capturing 14.65% of the weekend’s box office.

The South Korean box office saw “Captain America: Brave New World” retain the top spot for a second consecutive weekend, though its earnings declined. Meanwhile, animated horror thriller “Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning” debuted in second place.

According to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council, “Captain America: Brave New World” remained in first place with KRW3.1 billion ($2.2 million), accounting for 44% of the market share. The Marvel blockbuster, which follows Sam Wilson as he steps into the Captain America mantle, attracted 316,146 admissions over the weekend and has a cumulative total of $9.2 million.

Debuting in second place, “Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning” earned $739,664 over the weekend with 108,090 admissions. The film, directed by Kim Dong-chul, follows Father Park, a doctor-turned-priest excommunicated for performing exorcisms. He is called upon by a monk from a secretive temple to protect a powerful child from a corrupt master, forcing him to confront his inner demons.

Lauded Japanese auteur Miike Takashi sat down for an in-conversation event with longtime collaborator and producer Misako Saka at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where he is also screening “Blazing Fists.” The duo discussed their partnership as well as the impact of the director’s work in Japanese and international cinema.

On 1999’s “Audition,” Miike said he still believes the film to be “terribly violent” despite not having “set out to make a violent film.” “It became a violent movie as a result of the main character and working with actors who wanted to release this kind of feeling. I wanted to support actors to do more — if you want violence, just please go ahead.”

“Audition”

Speaking of actors, the director recalled working with Tadanobu Asano on the seminal “Ichi the Killer,” which, upon release, saw movie theaters offering sick bags to audience members due to the extreme content. Asano...

By now everyone should know The Ring (2002) is a remake of Ring (1998). Less known is the fact that Hideo Nakata’s momentous film was not the first on-screen appearance of the vengeful Japanese ghost who spreads her curse by video — in 1995, Fuji Television aired its own take on Sadako Yamamura’s story. Of course, this made-for-tv version has since been overshadowed and, in some circles, dismissed. Yet for all its many odd decisions, Chisui Takigawa and Jōji Iida’s collaboration still follows its source material a good deal more closely than subsequent films, particularly where its spectral antagonist is concerned.

Those new to Ring ’95 (also known as Ring: Kanzenban or Ring: The Complete Edition on home video) will immediately notice its protagonist is not a female divorcée and single mother, but rather a married man. Indeed, like in Kōji Suzuki’s ‘91 novel, the main character here is a male reporter named Kazuyuki Asakawa.

In 2002, the hype for Japanese horror films was declining rapidly, as the sequels to series like “Ring” or “The Grudge” were commercially and critically unsuccessful. Even though directors such as Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu came to Hollywood to helm the remakes to their films or their sequels, Hollywood had already adapted J-horror tropes to its own productions. As Jerry White points out, one of the perhaps most disappointing entries in the J-horror remakes was Jim Sonzero’s version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s “Pulse” (2001). Perhaps it was this particular experience which made Kurosawa change genres with his next project “Bright Future”.

Bright Future is screening at Black Movie

In general, Kurosawa is best known for his unique horror films such as “Pulse” or “Cure”, films which years after their release now unfold their true impact. At the same time, the director has also repeatedly explored the gap between youth and adults,...

The Ring, Gore Verbinski's supernatural horror spectacle of 2002, will stream soon on Peacock, proving that horror doesn't always take a break during the beginning of the year. Starting Jan. 1, Peacock subscribers will be able to stream the film about the cursed video starring Naomi Watts.

In The Ring, Watts plays Rachel Keller, a journalist who attends her niece's funeral and realizes Katie's death is not related to natural causes. Katie's mom asks Rachel to investigate, and during the funeral, the journalist finds out that the teenager isn't the only victim. A few of her friends also died in mysterious circumstances after watching a cursed videotape. When Rachel investigates the mysterious tape, she also sees the cryptic video. Seconds after it ends, she receives an ominous phone call from someone who just whispers, "Seven days."

Rachel grabs the tape and runs off. She contacts her ex-husband, who's a video specialist,...

The live-action film adaptation of Akane Shimizu's manga series Cells at Work! opened across Japan on December 13. The movie directed by Hideki Takeuchi ( Thermae Romae live-action film series) earned 844 million yen (5.48 million Usd) on 611,000 admissions between Friday and Sunday, making a first-place debut in the weekend box office ranking, according to the film's official website . The opening box office performance ranks third among live-action Japanese films released in 2024, behind Kingdom: Return of the Great General in July ( 1.629 billion yen ) and Last Mile in August ( 978 million yen ). Till We Meet Again on the Lily Hill , the most successful live-action Japanese film released last December, ultimately earned 4.5 billion yen from its total domestic run. The movie also ranked third in Filmarks' first-day satisfaction ranking with an average rating of 3.88/5.0 based on 2,213 reviews. Following the TV anime series and a short anime film produced by Toei Animation, a live-action film adaptation of...

The best Aaron Taylor-Johnson movies prove he is one of Hollywood's most exciting young actors. Born Aaron Johnson in 1990, he began his film career as a child actor in the early 2000s. He broke out into stardom with his performance as the young John Lennon in the biopic Nowhere Boy in 2009. During that star-making production, he met his now-wife, Sam Taylor-Johnson, who made her directorial debut with the film. Since then, Aaron Taylor-Johnson has appeared in all manner of Hollywood productions, from a litany of comic book adaptations to elaborate costume dramas.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is continuing his career streak as a Hollywood leading man with 2024's Kraven the Hunter,where he's playing the titular character as part of Sony's Spider-Man Universe (Ssu), in the same multiverse as Venom and Morbius. He is also slated to appear in David Leitch's The Fall Guy alongside Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt,...

Quick Links The Grudge Stays True to Its Origins by Keeping the Original Film's Director The Grudge's Non-Linear Storytelling Adds to Its Atmosphere

In the early 2000s, studios began to see the potential in Japanese horror films and how they could be translated for an American audience. Horror fans were already aware of the films of Hideo Nakata, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and others, but more casual moviegoers likely didn't search that part of the world to get their quick scare fix. Taking advantage of how the horror landscape was evolving and changing, DreamWorks Pictures optioned to remake Nakata's 1998 Japanese horror film, Ringu, for an American audience.

With The Ring, director Gore Verbinski was able to take the shell of that original story and make it accessible to American moviegoers, tapping into the supernatural elements that were familiar to them in other horror movies. The move was a success,...

Dcu head James Gunn asserted he's not a big fan of Asian movie remakes. However, 2002's The Ring, a U.S. horror adaptation of 1998's Ringu, is one exception he's willing to make.

James Gunn shared his favorite remake films in a lively conversation on Threads. His list is dominated by Western horror films like The Thing, The Fly, It, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers; it also included 2006's The Departed, a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. One Threads user commented that film is better than Martin Scorsese's take; Gunn chimed in and named The Ring as his all-time favorite Asian film remake. "I'd actually say the best remake of an Asian film (they're almost never good) is The Ring," he wrote. Gunn is now known for his string of Marvel and DC superhero movies, but his breakout feature was 2006's Slither, a body...

Plot: Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), one of the world’s biggest pop stars, becomes haunted by a familiar curse on the eve of her new world tour, sending her life spiralling out of control.

Review: 2022’s Smile was quietly one of the most profitable studio movies of the last few years. Originally designed as a low-budget movie for Paramount Plus, a round of excellent test screenings resulted in Paramount Pictures opting to give it a theatrical release. The result was a movie that grossed over $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. It immediately established writer/director Parker Finn, who adapted the movie from his own short (Laura Hasn’t Slept) as a horror phenom, and the release of his ambitious sequel is one of the bigger horror events of the year.

So, how does Smile 2 stack up to its sleeper-hit predecessor? Amazingly well, it turns out. Boasting a bigger budget,...

Parker Finn, the director of Smile and the upcoming sequel Smile 2, has confirmed what he considers as his favorite horror film of all time. Actually, scratch that. The filmmaker behind Paramount Pictures' mammoth-like horror film of 2022 has said that Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is possibly his favorite film of all time. Period.

Variety compiled several testimonies from the horror industry for their integral piece "Varietys 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time," and Finn took the mic to speak about Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of the Stephen King novel starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Finn helped revitalize the horror industry when his terrifying film Smile blew up the box office. Since then, Finn has been preparing the sequel (which will be released on October 18), and a very interesting remake of a horror classic. Nevertheless, he took the time to talk about his favorite film,The Shining:

"Cinephiles and...

Its ironic that when a horror movie is truly effective at producing fear, I never want to see it again. While there are some incredible horrors, like Stanley Kubricks The Shining, that I'll happily rewatch several times over, noticing something new with each viewing, other horrors told me everything I needed to know with a singular viewing, and although I enjoyed them the first time around, I have no desire to rewatch. In fact, some were so bone-chillingly horrific that the thought of having to experience them for a second time actually gives me anxiety.

There are lots of great movies that are so brutal I could only watch them once, and this is especially relevant for horror films. It might be that the movies excessive depiction of violence was just too much for me to take, but in other circumstances, it was not the literal imagery that made for difficult viewing,...

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Apartment 7A is a psychological horror thriller film directed by Natalie Erika James who also co-wrote the film with Christian White and Skylar James. Based on the 1967 novel titled Rosemary’s Baby by author Ira Levin, the Paramount+ film serves as a prequel to the iconic 1968 film by Roman Polanski. Apartment 7A is set in 1965 in New York City and it follows the story of a young dancer who rents a room from an elderly couple after suffering from a serious injury that ends her career. Apartment 7A stars Julia Garner, Dianne West, Kevin McNally, Jim Sturgess, Marli Siu, Rosy McEwen, Amy Leeson, Scott Hume, and Andrew Buchan. So, if you loved the psychological horror, edge-of-the-seat thrills, and compelling characters in Apartment 7A here are some similar movies you should check out next.

Rosemary’s Baby Credit – Paramount Pictures

Rosemary’s Baby...

The Criterion Channel’s at its best when October rolls around, consistently engaging in the strongest horror line-ups of any streamer. 2024 will bring more than a few iterations of their spooky programming: “Horror F/X” highlights the best effects-based scares through the likes of Romero, Cronenberg, Lynch, Tobe Hooper, James Whale; “Witches” does what it says on the tin (and inside the tin is the underrated Italian anthology film featuring Clint Eastwood cuckolded by Batman); “Japanese Horror” runs the gamut of classics; a Stephen King series puts John Carpenter and The Lawnmower Man on equal playing ground; October’s Criterion Editions are Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Hunter, Häxan; a made-for-tv duo includes Carpenter’s underrated Someone’s Watching Me!; meanwhile, The Wailing and The Babadook stream alongside a collection of Cronenberg and Stephanie Rothman titles.

Otherwise, Winona Ryder and Raúl Juliá are given retrospectives, as are filmmakers Arthur J. Bressan Jr. and Lionel Rogosin.

Deena Cortese felt she was looking like an iconic horror movie character before she upgraded her look.

The Jersey Shore star is prepping for the second half of MTV’s Family Vacation Season 7 spinoff series, featuring her pals Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Angelina Pivarnick, and other castmates.

As iconic reality TV stars, they all like to look their best, whether through cosmetic upgrades or other means. Some of the MTV OGs even seem to be aging in reverse in terms of their appearance.

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, Deena revealed she recently had her hair done by the White Opal Hair Company.

She shared a two-photo carousel post, with the first photo showing her smiling at the salon after having her done and the second showing how it looked before.

Fans reacted to Deena’s update, with some seeming to have mixed opinions about her change and...

Terror Tuesday: Extreme combines the experience of call-in radio shows with Thailand’s unique brand of modern horror. This new, eight-episode anthology series is inspired by the popular EFM radio program, Terror Tuesday, where listeners share their own frightening (and supposedly true) tales. Viewers will be lured in by the “based on real events” angle, but the creative — and not to mention brutal — interpretations of the truth is what ultimately makes this series worth watching.

Traditional anthologies struggle to stay relevant and on the air these days; the term “anthology” now often refers to series like American Horror Story and Slasher rather than anything in the vein of The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt. Thankfully for fans of self-contained horrors, Terror Tuesday: Extreme is more in step with those classic TV shows. In fact, the only thing linking these standalone stories is the titular radio program. And even...

The 28th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, which attracted the attention of the media and the film industry with the official announcement of its new AI division, concluded the festival’s official press conference revealing what’s behind ‘Bifan+ AI’, unveiling the identity film, and the complete line-up of this year’s edition including the opening and closing film.

Love Lies Bleeding to open and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In to close the festival

255 films from 49 countries to screen in cinemas and streamed on Wavve from 4-14 July

“An era of equal competition will come, in which imagination, not the size of budget, is the most important factor.” Festival Director Shin Chul

Special programs to focus on the ‘One and Only Son Yejin’, Mitani Koki, Kim Sung-soo and many others

Public Events to include ‘Carnival in July’, ‘Bifan Eve Cinema Music Concert’ and more

▲ From left to right: programmer...

South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) has unveiled the full line-up for its 28th edition, which is set to open with Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding and close with Soi Cheang’s Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.

The festival, running July 4 to 14, will screen 225 films from 49 countries, including 67 world premieres. Titles will also receive online screenings through local Ott platform wavve.

Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart and marks the second feature of UK filmmaker Glass, whose Saint Maud won the Best Director Choice Feature award at Bifan in 2020. The film premiered at Sundance before playing Berlin earlier this year.

Following the TV anime series and a short anime film produced by Toei Animation, a live-action film adaptation of Reiko Hiroshima's children fantasy novel series Fushigi Dagashiya Zenitendo is set to release in Japan on December 13, 2024. The short anime film was screened as a part of the omnibus film festival Toei Manga Matsuri in August 2020, then the TV anime series has aired on Nhk Educational TV since September of the year. Hideo Nakata , best known for the international success of his Ring horror film franchise, is attached to direct on a screenplay by Reiko Yoshida . And ex-Takarazuka star Yuki Amami is cast as the protagonist, Beniko, the owner of Zenitendo. The film's official website also opens today, revealing a teaser trailer and visual featuring Amami as Beniko. Teaser visual The fantasy novel series featuring illustrations by jyajya has been published for 20 volumes by Kaiseisha since May 2013, printing more than 8.5 million copies worldwide.

Vipco & BayView Entertainment have released the Asian horror film The House Of The Serpent, which is now available on Digital Platforms worldwide including on Hoopla in the USA.

The House Of The Serpent will arrive on AVOD Digital Platforms worldwide on 30th July 2024.

Takahashi gained prominence in the horror genre with collaborations with director Hideo Nakata on films such as “Don’t Look Up” (1996) and “The Ring” (1998), contributing significantly to the J-horror boom. His other screenplay credits include “Serpent’s Path”, “Orochi: Blood”, and Netflix’s “Ju-On: Origins”. In 2004, he made his feature film directorial debut with “Sodom the Killer.” Subsequently, he directed a series of horror films including “Sea of Madness” (2007), “The Sylvian Experiments” (2010), “The Carol of the Old Ones” (2011), and “Occult Bolshevism” (2017). Takahashi is also an author and published books as well as a collection of screenplays.

Synopsis:

Naomi (Shoko Nakahara, an actress and playwright, is writing a new play...

Hideo Nakata's 1998 J-horror sensation "Ring" ("Ringu") revolves around images, mainly the distortion of photographs that denote Sadako's (Rie Inō) marked victims, and the eerie, anxiety-inducing cursed tape that comes alive in grotesque ways. Even Gore Verbinski's 2002 remake employs this photographic distortion — smudged and blurred faces that hint at the tragedy that befell the ones photographed, as if their very souls were smudged out of the frame.

The idea that photographs capture the essence of our souls is not recent, nor is its relation to spirit photography far-fetched, as the shadows and aberrations captured are often considered proof of something amiss. When Nakata was asked about this concept in an interview with Offscreen, the director affirmed that the idea for the smudged photos was inspired by a real-life woman who could allegedly manipulate objects with her clairvoyance, just like Sadako's influence manipulated the photographs:

"Mister Takahashi, who wrote the script with me,...

Quick Links Who Does Hiroyuki Sanada Play in Ringu (1998)? Ryuji Takayama Was Very Important to the Ring Franchise Ryuji Takayama Became Sadako's Ghoulish Counterpoint In the Ring Franchise How Ringu Helped Launch Hiroyuki Sanada's Hollywood Career

The following article contains spoilers for Shgun. It also contains a mention of suicide.

Hiroyuki Sanada is one of the most talked-about Japanese actors in Hollywood. It's all due to FX's Shgun being a period drama and a masterpiece at the same time. In the series, Sanada plays Yoshii Toranaga, a feudal-era Lord of Edo, who works to ensure corrupt politicians and villains like Lord Ishido didn't govern Japan and take the throne.

Many have praised Shgun for its authenticity and Sanada's intimidating presence. Though Sanada delivers one of the best performances of his career as the titular shgun, he also may not have gotten there if not for another equally memorable...

Fantasporto, the Oporto Intl. Film Festival, kicked off Friday in Portugal’s Porto — a city famed for its elegant Romanesque cathedral, a bookstore that inspired “Harry Potter,” and the heady alcoholic drink — with an eclectic mix of titles but an emphasis on fantasy films.

Typifying the broad tastes of the festival chiefs, film critics Beatriz Pacheco Pereira and Mário Dorminsky, Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s satire “Testament” opened the event’s 44th edition at Batalha Centro de Cinema, and Chinese fantasy epic “Creation of Gods I: Kingdom of Storms,” directed by Wuershan, closes it.

Although Pacheco Pereira and Dorminsky, who compete with the Brussels Intl. Fantastic Film Festival and Sitges for fantasy films in Europe, know they can’t please everyone in Porto with their selection “what is really important to us is whether the audiences applaud the films,” Dorminsky says. “This is not a job for us. It is a pleasure.

The PG-13 rating, at least for horror, often induces derision or skepticism, like an instant shackle on the horror. A PG-13 rating broadcasts straightaway not to expect any excessive gore, violence, or any of the explicit fun stuff that tends to be horror’s bread and butter. But those things aren’t synonymous with horror’s true aim, which is to scare you silly.

Luckily, PG-13 horror has proven time and time again throughout the decades that it’s more than capable of inducing chills. Especially when it comes to the supernatural.

This week’s streaming picks are dedicated to PG-13 horror movies that bring the terror through ghostly jump scares, ominous atmosphere, and more. That the PG-13 rating means they also double as potential gateway horror for the budding monster kid is a bonus.

Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks,...

This post contains spoilers for "True Detective: Night Country."

The "True Detective: Night Country" corpsicle might just be the scariest thing on TV right now. We're three episodes into the chilling new season of HBO's bleak detective series, and the giant mass of frozen, terrified bodies only gets creepier with time. By now, the group of naked, dead scientists has mostly thawed out, dripping death all over the floor of a local hockey rink under the watchful, increasingly anxious eye of rookie cop Peter (Finn Bennett).

The corpsicle is clearly the horror centerpiece of "True Detective: Night Country," and the camera loves it. Each episode so far has been punctuated by close-up shots of the frozen faces of the doomed research team, and somehow, the jolt of adrenalized fear that accompanies the body horror reveal never quite wears off. In fact, the closer the group gets to a full thaw,...

Following what happened in the US during the last decade or so, the quality of Asian dramas has skyrocketed during the last few years, with a significant surge of talent from cinema towards streaming platforms, with Korea definitely paving the way in the regard, and Japan following. The result is quite impressive to watch, since, frequently, the level of these titles is equal to the one of movies.

Without further ado, here are 20 Asian dramas in random order proving the fact in the most eloquent fashion.

1. Cigarette Girl by Kamila Andini

“Cigarette Girl” is not a typical story of two broken hearts crushed by unfortunate circumstances, a trope over-used in the soap opera format. It also has a bit of history to offer alongside a basic insight into the women's hardships in Indonesia not such long time ago. “Your duty is to clean the house and find yourself a husband...

Horror is iterative, but it just as regularly moves through the same cycles decade after decade, ostensibly breaking new ground, when in reality, the genre is simply doing what is has always done. Today's horror landscape, for as remarkable and diverse as it is, is principally a landscape of legacy sequels. The horror of yesterday is new again, and commonly, old faces and names are dredged up to headline the latest nostalgic bloodbath. Reasonably, the present iteration could be decried as Hollywood's lack of originality, though seasoned horror veterans have seen this cycle before.

The early aughts were replete with imported horrors. Hollywood studios regularly borrowed transnational scares, repackaged them, and presented them as the next big thing. They were successful, too. Gore Verbinski's "The Ring," a remake of Hideo Nakata's "Ring," grossed nearly $250 million when released in 2002. Hollywood studios also remade the likes of "A Tale of Two Sisters,...

2023 was a banner year for horror films from across the globe, which deserve just as much praise and attention as any domestic genre triumph.

In a year that’s had its share of ups and downs at the box office, horror continues to be a top performer and one of the most consistent sources of entertainment. Superhero fatigue continues to set in and the ballooning budgets of major studio blockbusters have started to seem more like a curse than a kindness. The film industry adapts accordingly and figures out what audiences want.

However, horror movies have never been more popular and 2023 has been a goldmine of blood, guts, and gore. This year alone has featured grandiose franchise sequels like Scream VI, Evil Dead Rise, Insidious: The Red Door, and Saw X. Even Hercule Poirot has gotten into the horror game with A Haunting in Venice. Additionally, weird and wild local horror releases like Skinamarink,...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week — and since we’re off next week, you get an extra item!

Ghoulies Plushes from Toynk

Who among us hasn’t wanted to cuddle with the Ghoulies? Your dream can come true in the end, thanks to Toynk.

Summon 14″ plush toys of Fish Ghoulie, Cat Ghoulie, and Rat Ghoulie for $30 each. They’re currently eligible for a Buy 3, Get 1 Free deal.

Creature from the Black Lagoon Figure from Super 7

Creature from the Black Lagoon is joining Super7’s Super Cyborg line of “x-ray” toys next month for $125. Shipping is free with the code WINTER79.

The 11″ action figure features three removable panels that expose the anatomy of Gillman’s head, arm, and torso. It has seven points of articulation.

Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand’s satire “Testament” will open the 44th edition of Fantasporto, which runs March 1-10 in Portugal’s second city, Porto. Chinese fantasy epic “Creation of Gods I: Kingdom of Storms,” directed by Wuershan, closes the eclectic event.

The festival, which was named by MovieMaker magazine this year as one of the “25 coolest festivals in the world,” is headed by film critics Beatriz Pacheco Pereira and Mário Dorminsky. Around 600 feature films were submitted this year and 1,200 shorts.

Pacheco Pereira says they select films that have a “special touch but still a universal language.” Dorminsky adds: “We try to discover new directors.” These directors – having established a relationship with the festival – often return with their subsequent films, he says.

“Testament” epitomizes one trend that Pacheco Pereira identifies, which is “old people asking: ‘Where is the world going?'” She adds: “‘Testament’ is a wonderful film in which an...

While it might seem like Ghost Stories was only acting on the emerging J-Horror trend, this 2000 anime was in fact another adaptation of Tōru Tsunemitsu’s popular series of children’s books. After four live-action films based on the teacher-turned-author’s books, animation was the obvious next step. The anime — technically the second after a standalone ’96 Ova — has since gone on to become a favorite among Western audiences, although not for reasons the Japanese showrunners could have expected. No, this series is best remembered for its off-the-wall English adaptation that many fans liken to South Park.

Admittedly, Ghost Stories didn’t leave a big mark upon and after its initial release (other than a controversy regarding the ultimately unaired Kuchisake-onna episode). In its defense, though, many anime back then had a hard time standing out or living up to new expectations. As a reminder, that previous decade gave rise to...

Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”

Straight off the top, audiences going into An Amityville Poltergeist (2020) hoping to see objects flying around the famed Long Island house need to adjust their expectations. Despite featuring the word “poltergeist” in the title, the film is more of a drama with J-Horror spectral hauntings. In fact all of the horrific set pieces draw heavily on the visual iconography of Ringu/The Ring and The Grudge.

An Amityville Poltergeist is another name-only entry in the Amityville “franchise.” According to IMDb trivia, the film was shot under the title No Sleep, then became Don’t Sleep in post-production, then changed to include Amityville by the distributor when it was being shopped around.

So while there is a brief, half-hearted attempt to capture the iconic cat eye windows,...

Clockwise from left: The Departed (Warner Bros.), True Lies (20th Century Studios), Some Like It Hot (United Artists), 12 Monkeys (Universal)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Of all the challenges in the moviemaking universe, redoing a beloved foreign film for an American audience would seem pretty low on the list. You already...

The episode of Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie? covering The Grudge (2004) was Written and Narrated by Adam Walton, Edited by Juan Jimenez, Produced by Andrew Hatfield and John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

If there was one thing the early noughties had in an abundance, especially within the horror genre, it was remakes. We were graced with reboots, or re-imaginings, whatever you want to call them, of the likes of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, The Amityville Horror, House of Wax, Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake from 2007 and The Ring. However, despite the decent quality of those examples, well most of them, one thing that stands out in the film we’re focusing on today, The Grudge (watch it Here), is the fact that the original’s director, Takashi Shimizu, chose to also take on the remake. In 2002 the aforementioned The Ring,...

Shortly after noon Est the Argentinian thread in my Whatsapp exploded with congratulatory messages for Demian Rugna once his film When Evil Lurks won the best feature film award in the Official In Competition Selection at Sitges.    This is a historical moment as the horror shocker becamse the first Latin American movie to win the award for best feature film in the 56-year history of the festival. Congrats to our friend and the rest of the team behind one of the best horror flicks of the year.    When Evil Lurks is out in theaters now and will begin streaming on Shudder on October 27th.    When Evil Lurks Wins the Award for Best Feature Film at Sitges2023    Hideo Nakata and Brad Anderson...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Gore Verbinski's blue-soaked, melancholic "The Ring" incited a wave of J-horror stateside upon its release in 2002. A new century always brings new horror rules, and for the early part of this century, those rules mandated imported ghosties with tragic, complex backstories. Unlike most horror remakes, especially J-horror remakes, Verbinski's "The Ring" is arguably stronger than Hideo Nakata's original, no small feat given Nakata's status as one of this generation's premier Japanese horror auteurs. Post-millennium anxiety, digital unease, and swelling domestic discontent coalesced into more than hospitable conditions for "The Ring" to not just succeed, but succeed remarkably. $249 million worldwide isn't bad by any metric.

Beyond Verbinski's assured control of the material, the cast of new and familiar faces helped augment "The Ring's" most enduring scares. While Naomi Watts might be front and center, Daveigh Chase's contributions as chief baddie Samara Morgan cannot be overstated. With a dense,...

Indie horror frightmaker Brandon Christensen is back again with a supernatural shocker that boasts some of the year’s most brutal moments in horror. With Christensen’s signature style of slick, straight-to-the-point storytelling, the titular Puppetman is an inventive and new villain, akin to urban legends favs The Candyman or The Blair Witch…with one helluva twisted sense of humor.

The Puppetman, imprisoned and awaiting his fate on death row, has consistently professed his innocence, attributing his murderous spree to an ominous power that dominated him. As the narrative unfolds, Michal (portrayed by Alyson Gorske), his daughter, witnesses eerily familiar deaths around her. This sparks doubt about the authenticity of her father’s claims. As the deaths escalate, Michal finds herself burdened with the daunting task of unraveling the enigma of The Puppetman‘s curse.

“A supernatural shocker that boasts some of the year’s most brutal moments in horror.

Samara returns later this year with a brand new 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray set from Scream Factory, we’ve learned this morning. The Ring Collection is up for pre-order now.

Releasing on December 12, Scream Factory’s The Ring Collection focuses on the American-made remake franchise, and the 6-disc 4K + Blu-ray set will include…

The Ring (2002) The Ring Two (2005) Rings (2017)

You can pre-order The Ring Collection for $89.98.

“Extras in progress and will be announced at a later date,” Scream Factory notes.

If you prefer the original Japanese franchise, Arrow Video released the Ringu Collection Blu-ray set, which includes Hideo Nakata’s Ringu plus Ringu 2, Ringu 0 and Spiral.

The post ‘The Ring’ Collection 4K Ultra HD Set from Scream Factory Will Include All Three American Movies appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Gore Verbinski’s The Ring led the first wave of early 2000s horror remakes that partially defined the era’s landscape alongside Saw torture-porners and other reactionary post-9/11 subgenres. Granted, remakes have always been a foundational pillar that keeps horror reinventing itself decade after decade — but the 2000s were different. Production companies like Platinum Dunes and Dark Castle Entertainment fixated on updating horror favorites from iconic slashers to Vincent Price oldies, banking on nostalgia as an added profitability measure. It’s curious though, because 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and others get referenced when conversations think back to what started The Great 2000s Remake Avalanche — The Ring somewhat forgotten in these terms.

That could be because The Ring is based on Hideo Nakata’s Japanese adaptation Ringu (aka Ring), an international ghost story less popular with domestic audiences whose first introduction to Koji Suzuki’s 1991 novel was Verbinski’s Americanization.

Revenant, like so many horror stories, begins on a rainy night. Disney+’s latest South Korean drama opens as Professor Gu Kang-mo (Jin Seon-kyu) hurries through his front door, past shelves piled with books, and barricades himself in the study. “What went wrong?” he asks himself, flipping through his notes. Behind him, visible through paper windows, flashes of lightning illuminate a shadowy figure — its hair writhing in a wide halo like snakes.

Moments later, Gu is dead and we cut to what appears to be an unrelated scene. Rushing from...

Is it beginning to feel a little like 2020 to anyone else? As the major Hollywood studios continue to refuse even entertaining the completely reasonable requests from the striking actors' and writers' guilds, they've already started pushing back films that were previously set to arrive in the next couple of months, with more delays potentially on the way. Meanwhile, Netflix is doing better than ever -- although, in this case, it's thanks to their deeply unpopular but undeniably successful crackdown on password sharing and not because everyone is stuck at home with nothing else to do but finally stream those films and TV series they've been meaning to catch up on.

Speaking of which (how's that for a segue?), if you've been planning to watch any of the films or shows leaving Netflix in August 2023, now's the time to get cracking. There's nothing departing this month too likely to vanish completely into the streaming void.

A curse that infects people like a virus; a ghostly girl apparition with long hair — we owe these iconic J-horror images, and many other elements that are now the scary starter kit, to the creators of Ring (orig. Ringu). This year marks the 25th premiere anniversary of the supernatural thriller by Hideo Nakata, which was first released in Japan in January 2018 and then later screened at the Fantasia International Film Festival in July of the same year, became one of the highest-grossing Japanese horror movies, and basically charted the course for the entire J-horror tradition for many years to come. In 1991, Japanese writer Koji Suzuki published a novel called Ring, about a malevolent tape that brings a deathly curse on the head of young...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

When the American version of The Ring came out in 2002, it terrified people. Not to say that the original Ring from 1998 directed by Hideo Nakata wasn’t terrifying, but people were generally less open to having to read subtitles for international horror movies until recently. Similar to The Blair Witch Project, this movie cultivated instant speculation that the events portrayed in the film could possibly happen to viewers if they ever came across the dreaded VHS tape. The story has permanently embedded itself in the catalog of urban legends, and has even been parodied in the satirical Scary Movie franchise and Saturday Night Live skits.

The original horror classic, Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998) is crawling back to life on 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video, with the upcoming release just announced this morning.

Here in the United States, you’ll be able to grab Arrow’s Ring 4K Uhd release in two different versions: The Standard 4K Version and the Original Artwork Slipcover 4K Version.

Up for pre-order now, both versions will release on September 19, 2023.

Arrow Video presents Ring, the film that started the J-horror wave, restored from the original negative in glorious 4K and supplemented by a wealth of bonus materials.

In 1998, director Hideo Nakata (Dark Water) unleashed a chilling tale of technological terror on unsuspecting audiences, which redefined the horror genre, launched the J-horror boom in the West and introduced a generation of moviegoers to a creepy, dark-haired girl called Sadako. The film’s success spawned a slew of remakes, reimaginations and imitators,...

The Japanese horror boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, spawned in large part by Hideo Nakata’s Ring, gets the spotlight in the upcoming documentary The J-Horror Virus.

Check out the trailer below, first shared by Fangoria earlier today.

From Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp, The J-Horror Virus is said to be a “feature-length documentary charting the origins, evolution and diffusion across the world of a distinctive brand of made-in-Japan supernatural chillers that seeped into the global consciousness at the turn of the millennium, films featuring vengeful ghosts manifesting themselves through contemporary technology again a backdrop of urban alienation and social decay.”

The synopsis continues, “From its origins in Teruyoshi Ishii’s 1988 fake documentary Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Norio Tsuruta’s seminal Scary True Stories (1991/92) straight-to-video series, through such key titles as Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge...

While Hollywood was obsessed with remaking Japanese horror movies for a few decades, this did not stop a few cult classics from slipping through the fingers of studio executives. There are a few great Hollywood remakes of Japanese horror movies. For example, director Gore Verbinski’s take on The Ring is arguably as strong as Hideo Nakata’s original Ringu, and 2004’s The Grudge does a solid job of recapturing the appeal of 2002’s Ju-On: The Grudge. However, the only reason that these successful remakes are notable is because of how rare they are.

Broadly speaking, Hollywood remakes of Japanese horror movies are disasters. While critics often dismiss horror movies too quickly, the savage reviews received by the likes of 2020’s The Grudge, 2008’s The Eye, and 2006’s Pulse were more than earned. 2008’s take on One Missed Call even managed to make a Takashi Miike movie into a predictable slog,...

Titles include Kim Jee-woon’s Out of Competition drama ‘Cobweb’.

Mongolian distributor Filmbridge is on an acquisitions drive at the Cannes market, picking up a raft of titles led by Kim Jee-woon’s Out of Competition drama Cobweb from South Korea’s Barunson E&a.

In a show of support for embattled Ukraine, the company picked up all that was available from Film UA, comprising director Stanislav Tiunov’s drama Bucha, the story of a refugee from Kazakhstan who saved hundreds of Ukrainians in cities and towns occupied by Russian troops; newly launched horror The Witch of Konotop; werewolf thriller Maksym Osa...

Some horror movies have become so successful they've been remade over and over again. Hollywood knows if something worked once, it will work again, encouraging studios to build films into franchises by reworking them again and again. Classic horror films and 70s/80s slashers have all been expanded into franchises throughout the years. Likewise, filmmakers will never stop revisiting Dracula or Frankenstein, whether it's a recreation of the original films or taking the famous characters and putting them in a new setting.

The same thing goes for more modern films that came out in the 90s or 2000s. If an audience takes a liking to a movie, it's rare that a movie will end with just one film. When it comes to horror films, there are plenty of ways for the movies to reinvent themselves or be sold to a new generation. With updated technology, filmmakers can improve outdated scenes,...

The Days is a new Japanese series directed by Hideo Nakata and Masaki Nishiura. starring Kôji Yakusho and Yutaka Takenouchi.

Blamed by some, hailed as heroes by others, those involved with Fukushima Daiichi face a deadly, invisible threat — an unprecedented nuclear disaster.

Trailer The Days Release date

June 1

Where to watch The Days

Netflix

The Cast

Kōji Yakusho

Fumiyo Kohinata

Yutaka Takenouchi

Kaoru Kobayashi...