10 Best J-Horror Movies That Will Make Your Skin Crawl, Ranked According to Rotten Tomatoes

J-horror encompasses all the horror movies from Japan. Including Hideo Nakata’s The Ring, here are the 10 best, ranked by Rotten Tomatoes.

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Every culture on Earth has its own particular take on the horror genre. But, during the 1990s and early 2000s, a real wave of Japanese (or J-Horror) horror films worked their way into the popular zeitgeist. Often, they would follow relatively simple horror premises, revolving some kind of curse, ghost or otherwise. What made them so popular was, partly, their envelope-pushing visuals and deeply upsetting atmosphere.

They, of course, inspired a number of American remakes, only some of which successfully achieved the same effect as the original. Even before the aforementioned high point of the J-Horror wave, Japan already had an established tradition of spine-tingling and highly bizarre horror films. This list will look at ten of the best and, hopefully, scariest films the genre ever made.

10 Ichi The Killer (2001) – 65%

Directed by a man already famous for extreme and graphic movies, Takashi Miike (who currently has over 100 different features to his name), comes Ichi the Killer, his most extreme and graphic film yet.

Set in the world of Shinjuku Yakuza gangs, it centers on a sadomasochistic hitman (covered in self-inflicted cuts and scars) who needs to find Ichi, a mysterious and brutal murderer. The film is a real assault on the senses, pushing gore and violence beyond the extreme, but hidden within are some genuinely interesting ideas about pleasure and pain.

9 Pulse (2001) – 74%

Fans of the genre may already know director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who made a number of J-Horror films. Pulse follows three separate people as each is, in some way, affected by a spirit that lives in the internet. It tapped into the fear and uncertainty of what, at the time, was a relatively new technology.

The film uses this metaphor to tell a story of extreme loneliness, the spirit convincing each person that they are worthless. Along with its very bleak visual style, Pulse gets under the audience’s skin, its impact felt long after the movie is over.

8 Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) – 79%

There is really nothing quite like Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It’s part horror, part domestic drama, part arthouse project, and part superhero movie. Again tapping into fears about a world overrun by technology it begins with an ordinary man who pushes a metal rod into his arm. Soon he transforms into a metallic monster, locked in an eternal conflict with a bizarre metal-loving demon. Explaining the plot is almost unnecessary. It’s more a film that should be experienced, as its own particular brand of insanity folds out on screen.

7 Dark Water (2002) – 80%

From the director of Ringu, Hideo Nakata, Dark Water tells the story of a single mother and her young daughter as they move into a new, haunted apartment block. Nakata had already established himself as a master of deeply unsettling visual set pieces, and he does it again here managing to make the water in a flooded apartment feel like the scariest thing on earth. The film is brilliant, not least due to its central mystery, but also the way it develops the relationship between mother and daughter who find themselves in a dark and oppressive world.

6 Audition (1999) – 81%

Another entry from director Takashi Miike and the movie that finally got him international acclaim. When Audition first debuted, it was met with stories of audience members fainting, vomiting, and running out of the cinema. Beginning as a seemingly ordinary love story, it follows a widowed father as he tries to meet a new woman inviting the candidates to audition for, what they think, is a TV show.

It then takes the sharpest left turn in cinematic history and throws the audience into a very different type of film. Its greatest trick is in remaining ambiguous, it’s hard to pin down exactly what this film is trying to say and, indeed, it has been praised for its feminism and condemned for its misogyny in equal measure.

5 Onibaba (1964) – 83%

William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, has gone on record saying that Onibaba is one of the scariest films he’s ever seen. Set during feudal Japan, two women murder and samurai and sell his belongings to make some quick money. Among the possessions is a demon mask which, once put on is impossible to take off. The film brilliantly utilizes its sound to create an incredibly tense and oppressive atmosphere as it delves further into the nastier side of human nature. An excellent horror movie and a classic piece of cinema.

4 Kwaidan (1964) – 89%

Folk horror has often been a small, but successful, sub-genre and Japan has one of the richest traditions of scary and surreal folk stories. Kwaidan, from master director Masaki Kobayashi, was nominated for an academy award (best foreign film) for its adaptation of four supremely creepy folk tales, including one about some supernatural black hair. Tonally it may be very different from some of the others on this list (for one thing it’s quite long and slow) but it still deserves attention for its masterful storytelling and genuinely gorgeous visual style.

3 House (1977) – 90%

The word ‘unique’ could be applied to almost every film on this list, but never has it been more appropriate than when talking about House (or Hausu, in Japanese). A group of schoolgirls travel to an eccentric but beautiful house in the country to spend their summer holidays. However, it’s not long before the girls start disappearing one by one as the house itself begins to consume them.

It ranges between the hilarious and the terrifying as strange apparitions appear, or the walls start to close in, or the furniture comes alive. Its use of special effects is truly out of this world and influenced a great number of films, including Evil Dead.

2 Cure (1997) – 92%

A series of gruesome murders have been sweeping across Tokyo, committed by a number of different culprits each of whom has no recollection of what they’ve done. As a police detective repeatedly gets nowhere with the case he starts to suspect that the murderers have each been hypnotized and the film only gets weirder from there. Another from Kiyoshi Kurosawa who expertly manages to build the dread as the case drags on. At one point the film appears to be trying to hypnotize the audience and certainly plays with their expectation as scenes subtly shift genres from police procedural to psychological horror.

1 The Ring (1998) – 97%

Arguably the most famous entry on this list and for good reason. Hideo Nakata’s The Ring terrified audience’s the world over and was the film that really started the most recent wave of J-Horror movies. A rumor is spread about a notorious videotape; once it has been watched the viewer receives an anonymous phone call informing them that they will die in a week. A masterpiece of bubbling dread as the central characters struggle against an enemy they can neither see nor understand. It terrifies with its surreal visuals but still entertains with a highly original story and deeply sympathetic characters.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-japanese-horror-movies-rotten-tomatoes/