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Throughout cinema's history, the horror genre has remained one of the most consistently popular genres both in the United States and around the globe. During the 1930s, Universal monster movies reigned supreme. In the 1950s, science fiction horror movies encapsulated man's fears related to space exploration and the nuclear age. Psycho and The Exorcist helped turn horror into a mainstream genre in the 1960s and 1970s, which directly led to the horror blockbuster franchises of the 1980s. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw Japanese horror cinema rise in international popularity, while in the twenty-first century, independent film companies such as A24 have developed a cult following by specializing in low-budget horror moviemaking.

However, none of these distinctive eras within the horror genre would exist if it were not for the innovative horror films made during the silent era. Many critics and scholars argue horror cinema began in Germany as...

A restored, curated collection of Japanese silent films are going on an international tour courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s The Art of the Benshi 2024 World Tour. The Art of the Benshi 2024 will open at Bam in Brooklyn, and then travel to Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tokyo throughout the month of April. The tour, presented by the Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities and the UCLA Film & Television Archive, will run from April 5 through 26 across 12 dates at six venues in the aforementioned five cities.

The exhibit centers on films with Benshis, a term derived from “katsudō benshi” or “movie orator.” Benshi were the captivating live narrators of Japan’s silent film era. Benshi are artists that introduced films and provided live narration, portraying characters and articulating the onscreen action to theater-going audiences. More than 7,000 benshi were employed at the peak of the industry’s silent era.

Whether it’s anime or live-action kaiju flicks, there’s an underlying tendency in Japanese cinema to push things to the extreme, but that applies far beyond the action genre, extending as far back as the 1920s when Teinosuke Kinugasa released one of the most mind-bogglingly cerebral psychological thrillers of all time. A Page of Madness was released in 1926 in collaboration with the avant-garde film collective who called themselves the Shinkankakuha, translated as the School of New Perceptions. Together, they made it their mission to obliterate the very foundations of film grammar and storytelling, even when the medium was still in its relative infancy, resulting in what remains today as one of the most experimental works of horror ever produced.

Asian horror films have a long history and cultural significance, originating as a creative outlet to comment on societal issues and traumas. The dominance of Japanese horror in the international market began with the success of Ring in 1998, leading to the popularization of other J-Horror films. Asian horror films can offer unique perspectives and storytelling and have the potential to continue influencing the global horror genre in the future.

As many reach the tail end of their Halloween movie marathons, ticking off one classic horror film after another, you would be pretty hard-pressed to find a list of thirty-one stellar scary movies without at least one title originating from Asia. You might even be able to create a list of thirty-one Asian horror films on its own. From Japan’s House (1977) and Ring (1998) to Korea’s A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and India’s Tumbbad (2018), horror has long been one...

The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival (Bhff) announces today the full program for its 2023 incarnation, running October 12-19th with all screenings held at Nitehawk Cinema’s Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations. Audiences are in for an unearthly lineup of films and events, including the inaugural Leviathan Award, which will be presented to NYC horror legend William Lustig at a special 35th-anniversary screening of Maniac Cop, followed by a post-screening conversation with Lustig.

The Opening Night film is the World Premiere of Kill Your Lover from directors Alix Austin and Keir Siewert, who previously announced themselves to the Bhff audience last year with their short film Sucker. The 2023 festival boasts the World Premieres of three more exciting new films: Gaia director Jaco Bouwer’s unsettling Breathing In, Aimee Kuge’s audacious debut Cannibal Mukbang, and Tyler Chipman’s powerfully creepy debut The Shade. The festival’s other spotlight titles include director...

Japanese horror is about more than lanky-haired girl ghosts and cursed technology. Though "J-Horror" as it's known in the West is a fairly recent phenomenon, the country has been churning out fright films since the silent era, going all the way back to 1926's A Page of Madness. For those interested in pre-millennial Japanese terror, The Criterion Channel has a wonderful selection just waiting to be discovered.

“Across Asia Film Festival 2018. Ghosts of Asia”

Cagliari, Italy – from 2 to 10 December 2018

Across Asia, the International Festival dedicated to explore the cinematography of South East Asia – and this year focusing on Thailand e Philippine – is back on the beautiful island of Sardinia and is promising International and Italian Premieres, screenings, masterclasses, workshops and parties all over the city of Cagliari.

Stefano Galanti and Maria Paola Zedda are the creators and the artistic directors of Across Asia Film Festival that is a young festival, focused on most interesting languages of recent cinematographic production from Asia, with the goal of promoting the encounter between Italian and foreign communities and developing cultural exchanges.

Across Asia’s mission is to become a window on the world, a different and unconventional way to look at the Asiatic continent and its representations, away from the standard and usual mainstream view.

The programme includes many Italian premieres...

The Silent Japanese film A Page Of Madness (1926) screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood) at 7:30pm on October 28th with live music by the Alloy Orchestra. All tickets are $10

Quite a legendary entry in the history of Japanese cinema, Teinosuke Kinugasa’s A Page Of Madness (1926) was lost for 45 years, until it was rediscovered by the director in his storehouse in 1971.

A Page Of Madness is an amazing depiction of one woman’s graphic descent into mental illness, and her husband’s dedication to helping her. Released in 1926, it is one of the very rare Japanese silent films to have survived World War II. This avant guard film combines astounding cinematography, and a emotionally packed story in a non linear exploration of what’s going on in the characters’s (sometimes unhinged) minds.

Alloy Orchestra’s minimalist score helps with the audience’s capitulation to the ongoing insanity.

Quite a legendary entry in the history of Japanese cinema, Teinosuke Kinugasa’s “A Page of Madness” was lost for 45 years, until it was rediscovered by the director in his storehouse in 1971. However, the print existing today is missing nearly a third of what was shown in theaters in 1926, while the fact that it does not contain intertitles, since it was screened with the presence of a benshi (source: Aaron Gerow (2008). A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan), makes it quite difficult to follow, even more due to its avant-garde and experimental nature. Its cinematic impact however, cannot be denied in any way.

Having secured a distribution contract from Shochiku, Kinugasa formed the Kinugasa Motion Picture League, an endeavor that almost broke him financially, to the point that the actors of “A Page of Madness”, had to help paint sets,...

Tuesday, April 3

– Sundance Selects announced that it has acquired U.S. rights to the film “Blaze,” co-written, produced and directed by Ethan Hawke. Sybil Rosen co-wrote the film with Hawke based on her memoir “Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley.” Jake Seal, John Sloss and Ryan Hawke produced alongside Ethan Hawke.

The film held its world premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where newcomer Ben Dickey won the Special Jury Award for Achievement in Acting for his portrayal of Blaze Foley. The is inspired by the life of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw music movement that spawned the likes of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. The film weaves together three different periods of time, braiding re-imagined versions of Blaze’s past, present and future. The different strands explore his love affair with Sybil Rosen; his final performance in a near-empty honky-tonk; his last,...