Love Foolery Case for a Dismembered Body is a 2024 Japanese supernatural horror pinku film written and directed by Daisuke Yamanouchi. Known as an eclectic filmmaker, Yamanouchi has over 130 directorial credits to his name. These include horror films such as Dead A Go-Go (1998), Red Room (1999), and its sequel Red Room 2 (2000);

Continue Reading

Girl from Nowhere is a Thai thriller/horror anthology series created by studio SOUR. Easy to find on Netflix and with a series of promo images highlighting the mainly school-based contexts and characters, it seems we have another campy series that the platform tends to milk for cash. However, Girl from Nowhere has an undeniable charm

Continue Reading

Psycho= is a 2009 Japanese horror thriller written and directed by Ami Matsunosuke. Being the first title worked on by the filmmaker, they would go on to write and direct Shinreion: The Movie (2010), direct Sanzu: Sun of the Dead (2011), and work as a producer on Koi no Eiga wo Tsukuro (2014) and Jiku

Continue Reading

Female Harakiri: Glorious Death is a 1989 Japanese ero guro/fetish gore film directed by Akio Fuji. Sitting alone in a darkened room, a kimono-clad former soldier commits seppuku. Setting a precedent for the series, Female Harakiri: Glorious Death is a bleak and disturbing depiction of ritualistic suicide. The ambiguous lack of narrative or dialogue (recurring

Continue Reading

Onne is a 2006 Japanese horror film written and directed by legendary filmmaker Shozin Fukui. The film is one of the last feature-length titles Fukui worked on as writer/director, in addition to Den-Sen (2006). A 23-year-old hikikomori, Takeshi, lives an isolated life, willingly trapped inside his apartment. However, after a strange gas attack disables all

Continue Reading

Death Penalty.com is a 2011 Japanese psychological horror thriller written by Toshifumi Hiroki and directed by Ryota Sakamaki. Both known for their work in budget horror titles, Ryota Sakamaki has worked as a director on such films as Neo Document Series ZONE (2004), Scarier Stories than Ghosts Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2005), and Dark

Continue Reading

For those familiar with the fantastically oneiric LSD: Dream Emulator game, the Osamu Sato name may ring a bell. Born in 1960, this digital artist and composer has a knack for creating both visual and musical psychedelic aesthetics. One of his early works, and unfortunately not as well-known as LSD: Dream Emulator (1998), is Eastern

Continue Reading

Sana: Let Me Hear (2024), also known as Ano Ko wa Dare or Who’s That Kid, is a direct sequel to Takashi Shimizu’s Sana (2023), a film which I thoroughly enjoyed. Admittedly, I was oblivious to the fact that Sana would even receive a sequel, as I felt like everything was wrapped up nicely in

Continue Reading

Lost Paradise: Riding Habit Harakiri (‘Shitsurakuen’: jôbafuku onna harakiri) is a 1990 extreme horror/Ero Guro short film written and directed by Masami Akita. While best known as one of Japan’s leading noise music composers under the stage name Merzbow, Masami Akita has also directed the similarly themed horror short Bandage Anatomy Woman (1995)—a film often

Continue Reading

Between Everyday Life, Dreams, and a State of Emergency: The 26th Nippon Connection Film Festival Showcases the Diversity of Japanese Cinema The full program has been announced: numerous premieres, prominent guests, and a diverse supporting program focusing on Japan / Retrospective: Tatsuya Nakadai June 2–7, 2026, Frankfurt am Main From June 2 to 7, 2026,

Continue Reading