asian horror movies – Horror Ghouls

Pulgasari (1985)

Posted on January 9, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

“The Story Behind This Movie is Crazy!”

Once upon a time in North Korea there was this dictator, Kim Jong Il, mostly known for being the blueprint archetype for the evil final boss in a Far Cry game. Big boss Kim was also a huge movie buff, a true cinemaphile who owned up to 20,000 films. Rambo, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Friday the 13th, and, of course, kaiju movies like Godzilla, were some of his favorite films. But when it came to North Korean films, there wasn’t much to be impressed by, as they all were mostly boring duds made for propaganda.

Then there was this famous South Korean film director, Sang-ok Shin, “The Prince of Korean Films“ as he was called. And Kim had an eye for him. This was his Steven Spielberg, so to speak. So, in order to produce some more profitable movies in North Korea, big boss Kim took the easy way to get Shin kidnapped to be hold in “house arrest” (just to put it nicely) in North Korea where he was forced to make movies. Plain and simple. This was between 1978 and 1986 after he managed to escape to the US.

If this alone sounds totally bananas, this is just the tip of the iceberg of this absurd saga. So, here’s a complicated story, which could have been an insane movie by itself, cut simple: it all started with a kidnapping in Hong Kong, not by Shin, but by the actress Choi Eun-Hee. The year was 1978 and the actress was the ex-wife of Sang-ok Shin and the favorite actress of big boss Kim. When Shin flew to Hong Kong to search for her, he got assaulted by some agents under the orders of, guess who, the big boss Kim, who brought him back to Mordor, I mean North Korea. The cinemaphile that Kim was, opened a brand new movie studio with 700 employees/slaves where Shin was forced to make films. Several starred his ex-wife. Yes, she was alive. The films weren’t seen by anyone, maybe expect for some few lucky people in the country that were actually allowed to. Most people didn’t even knew what a movie theater was. And that didn’t put any cash in Kim’s pockets. Showbiz is tough, even in North Korea. What a shocker. So now what?

Then 1984 came with The Return of Godzilla, which became a smash success in Japan. Big boss Kim saw the movie and said to Shin while sitting with his high heels and eating chocolate pudding: I also want one! Now! Alright, then. Here’s Pulgasari for you, an absurd, goofy Godzilla-clone ordered straight from Temu (even before Temu). Happy now, big boss Kim? Can I and my ex-wife go home now? Please? This was a big international co-production with China and Japan and was meant to be the big magnum opus for North Korean cinema. Toho Studio was actually involved here. Yes, in Mordor, I mean North Korea. Must have been some blackmailing going on here, ’cause that the film was made and finished under its bat-shit crazy circumstances is a miracle by itself.

The plot for Pulgasari goes like this: We’re somewhere in the 1300s North Korea where the peasants and farm people are living under tyranny by an evil king. No shit. The time period could as well be set in 1985, even in the present day of 2026, and there wouldn’t be much difference. The evil king forces a small village to hand over all of their metal so he can make weapons. As the blacksmith, Takse, refuses to forge the weapons for the king, he gets shoved into a muddy prison cage to die of starvation. His daughter Ami tosses some rise into his cage, and here it’s when it gets interesting: instead of eating the rise, he mixes it with mud and makes a kaiju action figure out of it. After Takse dies, his daughter takes the figure, sticks a needle in her finger and drops her blood on it, and it then comes to life. She names it Pulgasari. And Pulgasari is a sight to behold. The creature grows from a cute n’ cuddly goofy-looking puppet, to Bowser from Super Mario Bros, just without the shell, and the red hair.

Pulgasari’s favorite food is metal. And the more he eats, the bigger he gets. The peasants now have a perfect weapon to fight against the evil king and his empire. And the most ironic thing here is that this is actually an uplifting story about fighting against tyranny — in the forbidden country of North Korea, while at the same time being produced by a tyrant. Bruh… Ami, who basically gave birth to the monster, also gets held hostage by the king, which gives Pulgasari a bigger motivation to destroy the evil empire.

So what we basically have is a messy, clunky, chaotic and tone-deaf circus show with lots of crazy things going on, where I’d also guess that the safety standards were nonexistent. Around 10,000 soldiers were used as extras here who risked their lives as they got attacked by dozens of rolling fireballs. 3.5 million people in North Korea died of starvation a few years after big boss Kim produced his masterpiece, so I would assume that he is just maybe the kind of guy who couldn’t give a fuck less if some actors got seriously hurt or killed during the filming. Roll camera, hope for the best and rest in piece in advance, just in case.

The film isn’t completely hopeless though. The Japanese company Toho was as mentioned involved, which also made the rubber costume of Pulgasari. Inside the costume was Kenpachirô Satsuma, a veteran known for being Godzilla in a laundry list of movies. Pulgasari has lots of screentime where he spits fireballs and destroys miniature buildings. The classic stuff. And if you expect the film to land on a more conventional ending, well — SPOILER WARNING — After Pulgasari saves Ami and wipes off the tyranny, they don’t know what to do with him. He doesn’t get any smaller, and metal is his only food. So… looks like someone just has to euthanize the poor thing before he becomes a serious new threat. The solution? Ami hides in a bell where she waits for Pulgasari to eat her. After doing so, he have the oh shit, what did I just do?-look on his face before quickly imploding and falling apart into dust. But there is actually one more little special and magical moment after that which I won’t spoil.

The aftermath of the whole epic spectacle is a chapter in itself, but there is actually a positive ending here. Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife got remarried after a suggestion from big boss Kim himself. Then came the time to sell Pulgasari to the world. Yes, outside of North Korea. And during a film festival in Vienna, Shin and his wife finally managed to escape and seek asylum in the US where he made some low-budget ninja films under the pseudonym of Simon S. Sheen. In 1996, he was the executive producer on Galgameth, an American fantasy film for kids, based on Pulgasari. Big boss Kim, on the other hand, was pissed. So pissed that he buried all of Shin’s movies, including Pulgasari, even though he called it a masterpiece. However, the film somehow survived, and in 1996 it was put on the silver screen for the first time in Tokyo, where it was a success that even outperformed the American remake of Godzilla (1998). Pulgasari wasn’t as lucky in South Korea where it sold under 10,000 tickets. Some other sources say that Kim Junior, the son of big boss Kim, is a big fan of of the film and tried to sell the film internationally himself at one time, which went nowhere.

And all that said, it comes at no surprise that there’s no official release of the film. The only thing to grab it on are DVD-bootlegs. It’s not exactly in HD, but still looks better than the AI filter version that’s available on YouTube.

Director: Shin Sang-ok
Writer: Se Ryun Kim
Country & year: North Korea/Japan/China, 1985
Actors: Son Hui Chang, Ham Gi Sop, Jong-uk Ri, Gwon Ri, Gyong-ae Yu, Hye-chol Ro, Sang-hun Tae, Gi-chon Kim, In-chol Ri and about 10.000 of involuntary extras
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089851/

Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead (2011)

Posted on January 2, 2026January 15, 2026 by HorrorGhouls

What if Quentin Tarantino had a serious mental collapse and flew to planet Japan to make his 10th and final movie? Well…

The film starts exactly how you’d expect: A crazy-like scientist makes a zombie puke something in the mouth of his young daughter who has blood cancer. Saitei! After a groovy and quick opening credits which I won’t spoil, we meet a group of friends who are on a camping trip: we have the schoolgirl Megumi, the druggie Tak, his airhead girlfriend Maki and the geeky goofball Naoi. Megumi, the one dressed in the classic and cute Sailor Moon uniform, knows her karate just to make sure that she’s the star here and not one to mess with. She’s also grieving after her sister killed herself in shame after she farted in front of her bullies. Oof. That’s brutal. My condolences. Anyway: the airhead Maki wants to be a model and catches a trout to find a tapeworm so she can speedrun her loose-weight process. Always a great idea. She slurps a big fat tapeworm like a noodle, and hopes for the best.

And to say that shit starts to happen is the biggest understatement of the century.

Maki’s stomach starts to act funny, and she has to take a shit. Uh-oh. Well, girls have to shit too. As they enter a small empty village, she finds the nearest outhouse toilet where a zombie grabs her buttcheeks. Makes me wonder if this is the same guy from Headhunters (2011). A dozen of shitty zombies emerge from the toilet of the dead, called “Shit men“, plain and simple (thanks to the subtitles). They vomit and throw shit, and from here on we can say that the film surely lives up to the title. Maki unleashes an epic yellow cloud of fart that forms into a demonic shape. Absolutely diabolical, as Ed Warren would have said. An alien-looking parasitic monster comes out of her brown hole, not so unlike what we saw in Dreamcatcher (2003), and our group of friends are surrounded by shit men and parasites. All this is caused by the scientist we saw at the beginning. Why and how? To find a cure to save his young daughter. Good news is that Megumi also knows how to handle a shotgun.

What we have next is a, well, an epic shitstorm where director Noboru Iguchi (The Machine Girl, RoboGeisha, Dead Sushi) turns his extreme fart-fetish all up to 11. He started his career with the fetish porn film Doctor Enema and continued to work in that side of showbiz throughout the 1990s to mid 2000s. So, this is clearly his alley. The year after Zombie Ass, he got the golden ticket to direct a segment of the horror anthology The ABCs of Death, and you can guess which letter: F for Fart, which also actress Arisa Nakamura (who plays Megumi) got the pleasure of being in. If that’s not the most embarrassing kind of typecasting, I don’t know what is.

While the film is as silly, goofy and cartoonish as it is, here’s some of the more thought-provoking dialogues: I’m bleeding from my butt! — Why am I releasing a neverending fart? — You fart and fart until you die. That is your fate! — I just farted! — That butt ate my bat! — I killed him with my butt! — Dumb ass! You’ve got shit for brains! — ANAL VOLCANO!

And there you pretty much have Zombie Ass in a nutshell, more brown than usual, with lots of farting, fetish-driven grossness, exploding heads, karate fights in manga-style and tentacle/body horror sprinkled with some more serious topics such as bullying. Just a normal day in Japan. It has it all, almost. The blood is mostly cheap CGI, but(t) while the green-screen effects look like something from a YouTube skit. The shit seems at least real. So real, in fact, that actress Asana Mamoru (Maki) had to control her bowel movements while filming the outhouse scene so she didn’t poop on the zombie who had the pleasure of grabbing both her buttcheeks. Some of the farts heard were also real! Amber Turd or Blake Lively wouldn’t hold back for even a split second. Working in showbiz is so glamorous, innit? Can’t wait for the cocaine and the hookers that don’t fart. In an alternative universe, Siskel & Ebert gave this Two Brown Thumbs Up! …eew. Eating a can of chili beans beforehand while wearing a fresh skid marked underpants could also add some nice Smell-o-Rama effect. Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead can be found at the one and only streaming site that (fecal) matters — Tubi. Enough cringe wordplay for today.

Couldn’t actually find any watchable trailer for this masterpiece, but the screenshots, if not the title alone, speak loud and clearly for themselves.

Director: Noboru Iguchi
Writers: Noboru Iguchi, Tadayoshi Kubo, Ao Murata, Jun Tsugita
Original title: Zonbi asu
Also known as: Zombierumpe: De dødes toalett (Norway)
Country & year: Japan, 2011
Actors: Arisa Nakamura, Mayu Sugano, Asana Mamoru, Yûki, Danny, Kentaro Kishi, Demo Tanaka, Asami, Sayuri Yajima, Haru Shiina, Yûya Ishikawa, Hideki Kurauchi, Takeo Gozu
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2061869/

Exit 8 (2025)

Posted on November 7, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

A man is at a subway station, and it’s just a normal crowded and busy-as-hell day in Japan. On the train, he watches a woman holding a crying baby, who gets yelled at and harassed by an angry passenger who has become annoyed by the baby’s constant screaming. The woman desperately tries to hush her baby, telling the angry douchebag that she’s sorry…and no one bothers to step up for her. Not our protagonist, either, who seems bothered by the incident but decides to just block it out with his phone and earplugs. Just a normal day in an everyday phone-infested daily life where no one gives a shit.

As the man then gets off the train and walks the hallways of the subway station, his ex girlfriend calls: she’s pregnant! And she’s unsure what to do about it, and wants to hear his opinion, which only results in a lot of stammering and procrastination, until the signal is lost and he finds himself in what appears to be a strange and mostly deserted passage. There’s a sign saying he should take Exit 8 to get out of the station. Okey-dokey, then. As he keeps walking, he finds himself inexplicably stuck as he keeps returning to the same spot over and over, like walking in a literal circle with no exit to be found. And even stranger: the same man keeps coming, from the same place, whenever he gets back at the entry point. As he starts studying the signs and info posted around the place, he’s instructed to look for and identify any anomalies, and if he sees any, he should turn back instead of walking forward. As he notices slight changes after several walking rounds, he notices that if he follows these instructions, the level proceeds from 0 to 1, and upwards. But if he makes a mistake, no matter how far he’s gotten, he gets sent back to level 0 again. And the anomalies and incidents that keeps happening gets weirder and stranger the further he gets..

Exit 8 (Japanese: 8番出口) is a psychological mystery thriller from Japan, directed by Genki Kawamura and co-written with Kentaro Hirase. It’s based on a video game from 2023 by the same name, which was developed by Kotake Create. It was filmed in Tokyo during late 2024 to early 2025, for the most part in a built replica of the game’s underground passage.

Time loop films can be a fun and interesting concept, with a lot of things to play around with, everything from rather simple and upbeat ideas like Happy Death Day (or even the recent Until Dawn which was also based on a video game), or the more artsy ones like for example Koko-di Koko-da. In Exit 8, you not only get the loop concept, but it’s concentrated around a liminal space area which gives it an extra dreamlike and surreal feel.

Exit 8 is one of those mystery thrillers that never really offers anything that’s outright frightening in and of itself, but it’s the total feel of the place, the small oddities, weirdness and surrealism of everything. While I haven’t yet played the game this movie is based on, I have for a long time enjoyed games that involves liminal space surroundings and heavy surrealism (and while I’ve played several of these games over the years, none have really scratched that itch the same way as Yume Nikki did). What I think makes Exit 8 very effective in creating an eerie vibe with such a bright location, is the mix of familiarity with a deepening sense of something being very, very wrong about the place. And to be honest, it was actually a bit fun to follow the protagonist walking round and round while trying to spot some anomalies together with him.

While the game itself is just a surreal liminal space horror game with no actual narrative, this movie does add something to the mix which becomes rather apparent early on. There’s a lot of metaphors here, mainly about being indecisive and stuck in a self-inflicted loop of irresolution, especially when it involves guilt and responsibility. And the road to an actual solution seems like it’s never coming, and you keep trodding the same path over and over and often looking at so many external reasons why you’re stuck, instead of looking inwards and realizing the solution most often lies within yourself.

Exit 8 is a weird and minimalist psychological thriller that manages to keep the viewer engaged with what is a very simple premise. Perfect if you also like ideas featuring liminal space environments!

Director: Genki Kawamura
Writers: Kentaro Hirase, Genki Kawamura
Country & year: Japan, 2025
Actors: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kôchi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, Nana Komatsu, Hikakin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35222590/

Hausu (1977)

Posted on October 25, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In Tokyo, there lives a teenage girl whose name is Gorgeous. And yes, of course she is beautiful, and of course she’s also got a wealthy father and appears to be living a harmonious life with nothing to complain about. Her life turns upside down when her father, who has been widowed for a time, announces that he’s married a woman named Ryoko Ema. Who seems to be a very nice woman, by the way, ready to be the best stepmother she can. Gorgeous, on the other hand, throws a temper tantrum like a little, spoiled brat and hurries to her room, where she writes a letter to her aunt, whom she has never met, asking to come visit her. Gorgeous receives a letter back almost instantly. Of course lonely, old auntie is ready to welcome her! Gorgeous brings six of her friends along with her: Sweet, who is of course sweet as candy and with a personality as gentle as a lamb, Kung Fu whose specialty is martial arts (who would’ve guessed), Fantasy, who is constantly daydreaming and having her head in the clouds, Melody, who plays the piano like a maestro, Prof, who is an academic and intelligent girl, and Mac, who…loves to eat. And is of course “fat“ (she isn’t, really, but that’s Asian beauty standards for you).

On the way to auntie’s house they bring along a white, fluffy cat, who appears to the aunt’s harbinger of sorts. Prior to getting to the aunt’s cozy country house, they meet a watermelon seller who could’ve more or less been the “don’t go to the house“ kind of guy, but which does the opposite and tells them exactly how to get there. Greeting the girls in a wheelchair, the aunt seems to be very happy to welcome them. The always hungry Mac had of course bought a Watermelon from the seller they met earlier, and brings it as a gift which they leave in a well to keep it cold. And from now on, it doesn’t take long before everything inside the house turns into a spookfest of the purest insanity! It all starts with Mac going out to retrieve the watermelon, and doesn’t return. Worried, Fantasy goes to check on her, only to find Mac’s disembodied head which flies into the air and bites Fantasy in the butt. Nobody believes her, of course, but soon all kinds of supernatural shenanigans are happening all around the house, which is all so gaga loony that nothing can really prepare you for the enchantment of the House and its white fluffy kitty!

House aka Hausu (Japanese: ハウス) is a Japanese comedy horror film from 1977, directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi.

Toho Studios contacted Obayashi because they wanted to make a movie like Jaws and needed ideas. Okey-dokey then. If Obayashi was an Italian he would probably gone ahead and urged Toho to make a shark film and call it Jaws 2, but we’re in Japan, where the craziest ideas are allowed to take form! So he went to his pre-teen daughter Chigumi for ideas, under the presumption that adults only think about things they understand, so everything stays on a boring human level while children can come up with the strangest things that defy explanation. Thus, sharks and beaches were replaced with a fluffy white cat and a spooky country house that eat girls. Obayashi also used some of his childhood as inspiration for some of the key elements in the movie. He was born in Hiroshima, and during the atomic bombings he lost all his childhood friends. He decided to use these themes into the plot of the film, by creating a plot element of a woman’s ghost waiting for her love to return back home from World War II, a wait that lasted forever since her lover died, and this turned her into an evil spirit. The ideas were given to Chiho Katsura, who then wrote the script for the film.

Now that the big cooking pot had boiled and simmered into this psychedelic brew, the project was green-lit. Except…it had to be put on hold for two years, because no one at Toho wanted to direct it as they all thought it would be a disaster that would ruin their career. Obayashi himself originally proposed to direct it, but he was turned down since he wasn’t amongst the staff at Toho. He kept promoting the film until the studio finally caved in and said “alright then, since we can’t get anyone else to touch this thing with a 10-foot pole, go ahead and do your thing.“ And together with a bunch of amateur actors and a lot of pep, history was made.

If Toho Studios hoped for a critically acclaimed hit like Jaws, they were in for a nosedive on House. It mostly received negative reviews, but despite this, it ended up becoming a box office hit in Japan. Ironically, when the movie got a wider release in North America in 2009 and 2010, it was met with a much more favorable response and it was from here on that it gained a cult following.

Obayashi had, prior to this film, mostly worked in commercials and independent films, so the majority of the cast in House were not established actors. It was a mix of people he had worked with before, and some friends and family. His daughter even has a small role as the little girl in a shoemaker’s shop, and the shoemaker himself was played by the production designer. While being filmed in one of Toho’s largest sets, Obayashi made sure to have a playful attitude which caused everyone to have fun. The Toho crew felt the film was utter nonsense, but let’s be honest…it kind of is. But it’s the good kind of nonsense! The overall mix of complete nonsense, childish and upbeat tone with the horror elements reminiscent of the nightmare logic of a 5-year old, is what makes this movie such a unique experience, accompanied with a fitting score which was performed by a rock band called Godiego.

Visually, the movie leans towards a little kitsch and European fairytale vibe. There’s a lot of experimentation with practical effects, and insane imagery. There isn’t a single frame that looks uninspired or boring. The visuals fit so well together with all the spooky things happening all the time, as the girls are attacked by all kinds of things in the house: flaming logs, mattresses, and a finger-hungry piano…and something about a guy turning into a bunch of bananas. Because why not.

Nothing can really prepare you for the childish and golden insanity of House. Just sit back and enjoy the trip!

Director: Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Writers: Chiho Katsura, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi
Country & year: Japan, 1977
Actors: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ôba, Ai Matsubara, Mieko Satô, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Kiyohiko Ozaki, Saho Sasazawa, a white fluffy persian cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/

The Cat (1991)

Posted on October 21, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Li Tung is sleep deprived and near a mental breakdown from the constant noise his neighbor is making, hammering all night. He decides that enough is enough, time to deal with this noisy neighbor! He confronts the man, and when getting a little peek into his neighbor’s apartment, Li Tung notices that there’s a beautiful young woman inside, holding a fluffy black cat. Aww. The next day, Li Tung witnesses his neighbors departing in a moving van. Well, at least now he can get some peace and quiet at night.

Curious, he decides to enter the ex-neighbor’s empty apartment, only to notice it’s…not so empty, after all. There’s a pile of newspaper on the floor…bloodied. Underneath he discovers what appears to be human guts, and he freaks out and calls the police. Plot twist: the police deducts that they were not from a human, but fresh cat intestines. And then they laugh at silly Li Tung for the false alarm. Uhm…encountering a pile of cat intestines in an apartment is a laughing matter…? What the actual fuck.

Li Tung is then having dinner with police inspector Wang Chieh-Mei, the adventure novelist Wisely, and his partner Pai So. Wisely is convinced that the girl and her black fluffy cat are aliens. And who are they, exactly? Wisely has no proper clue (yet) but we learn that the girl and the cat who is called The General are indeed aliens, and the man with them is Errol, the girl’s protective knight. They need to obtain some octagonal artifacts which will help them defeat “The Star Killer“, which is a large, fungus-blob monster with some kind of electricity superpower. The problem is: these octagons are in museums, so they need to steal them…and The Star Killer tries to hunt them down while killing everything that stands in its way in the most gruesome ways possible, zombiefying them in the process and taking control over their bodies, making them its minions. Wisley might be the only one who can help the aliens…

The Cat (衛斯理之老貓 Wèisīlǐ Zhī Lǎomāo, lit. “Wisely’s Old Cat“), aka The 1000 Years Cat, is a Hong Kong science-fiction action horror film from 1992. It was directed by Lam Ngai Kai (known for Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky which we have yet to see but looks just as bonkers as this one), and based on a novel called Old Cat which is an installment in the Wisely series by Ni Kuang, which consists of sci-fi adventure novels with the character Wisely as the protagonist. Ni Kuang actually has a cameo in this film, as a dog owner named Mr. Chen.

If you want some crazy Hong Kong sci-fi action horror, then look no further. The Cat delivers and more than lived up to our expectations! An extraterrestrial feline with kung-fu powers that aids a pretty alien girl in battling a cosmic blob monster that turns its victims into controlled zombies? Yeah, you already know you’re in for a ride! Whenever the fluffy black cat is on screen, you know there will be some pure goodness to witness. It’s either something totally cheesy (like the scene where the girl and the cat are “playing around“ by levitating around in the street), something cute like the cat snuggling the actress, or there’s some wild creature feature effects mostly followed by even wilder gore scenes. The cute and the macabre in such a balanced unison!

As the story progresses, and Wisley teams up with the aliens, The Star Killer manages to control even more bodies. One of The Star Killer’s controlled bodies is that of the cop Wang, who turns on a full Terminator-mode and gets himself a load of guns and blasts the hell out of everything. As if this wasn’t wild enough we also get a scene at the end of the movie with some of the craziest giant blob monster effects, where our protagonists are on the rooftop to fight it off.

If you’re still not sold in on this movie, then at least watch it for the most legendary fight scene in all of movie history. Yes, I’m talking about the Cat vs. Dog fight. I’m even struggling with how in the hell I could possibly describe this scene and make you realize just how intensely insane it actually is, but no…you just gotta see it for yourself. And it was just as hard to pull off this fight scene as it looks…it took a whole six months to complete it, with seven trained cats. The special effects director who was originally hired to create these scenes was fired after just three days due to animal endangerment, and instead they got Japanese effects artist Shinji Higuchi onboard.

The Cat is a wild ride with so many insane and crazy elements that the day after watching it you may find yourself wondering if you just dreamt up the entire thing. It’s really that bizarre. From the one crazy scene to the other, with puppetry, inspired practical effects, absurd fight scenes and overall cozy tone that adds to the already bizarre vibe, this movie is sure to stick with you as one of the weirdest things you’ve witnessed.

The Cat is available on 2K restored blu-ray from 88 Films.

Director: Ngai Choi Lam
Writers: Gordon Chan, Hing-Ka Chan, Kuang Ni
Original title: Lo mau
Country & year: Hong Kong, Japan, 1991
Actors: Gloria Yip, Waise Lee, Christine Ng, Yee Cheng, Yuk-San Cheung, Liang Chiang, Lam Chua and a big solid black fluffy cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105796/

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (2012)

Posted on October 20, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell is the one and only Japanese Evil Dead, also known as “The Lost Evil Dead remake“, and one of those films you’ve never seen. Well, thanks to Tubi, the only horror streaming service you need, we randomly came over this hidden relic earlier this year, and had no idea what to expect — other than some bizarre J-horror insanity, especially with a nutty title like this.

The best way to explain this short and simple, is as if a manic fifteen-year old got his religious calling card after watching Evil Dead, grabbed the parent’s 8mm and made his own magnum opus on pure impulse with his friends in the backyard. In other words: ultra-cheap, very primitive and Z-grade schlocky yet filled with crazy energy and dedicated, stubborn non-stop passion. And when it’s also from Planet Japan, you know you’re in for something extra and special. The film is written, produced, directed and edited by Shinichi Fukazawa, who of course, plays the bodybuilder from hell. He’s also behind the effects and make-ups. And this is, as we speak, the only film he’s directed.

We meet the young hunky bodybuilder Shinji, not Ashu, (played by the director himself) and his ex-girlfriend and paranormal journalist Mika. Since Shinji is without a job and has nothing better to do than pump iron, he tags along with Mika to investigate a local haunted house. They also bring a psychic priest. But this is not just some random house though; it’s the house of Shinji’s dad, who once lived there with a mysterious girlfriend. Aside from the trippy horrorshow that’s around the corner, we also have a lot of dark secrets and lore to be revealed during the one-hour runtime. The film was shot in Shinichi Fukazawa’s parents’ house, and since it was planned to be demolished, the young director got a whole free set on a silver platter to go wild and fire on all cylinders. And so he does.

The fun begins after the first dull twenty minutes. It all starts when the priest gets demon-possessed and trapped inside the house with our two protagonists. What we have next is more or less what the alternative title is: The Japanese Evil Dead, with some flair of Resident Evil, and even some well-known elements from The Grudge before The Grudge — and an extravaganza of splatter effects of various sorts with everything from cheap rubber limbs, eyes popping out, neck-biting, ball-grabbing, head-crushing with a barbell and even more trippy stop-motion effects. And gallons of blood. All done in the most naive old-school way possible. And yeah, there’s no Evil Dead without a golden shotgun, waiting to be used with the catchphrase See you in Hell… Baby! No sugar for the bodybuilder.

The production of Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell began in 1995 and making the film took 16 days. I’m kidding, it actually took him 16 years! Most of which I guess has to be editing stuff with some hardcore OCD involved, because, seriously. Body Builder in Hell got its first official release in Japan in 2012 when Shinichi Fukazawa self-distributed the film on a 100 limited DVD-R, in pure underground-style, before it was shown in theaters, only in Japan, of course. It was released on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance in 2022. But if you expect some image restoration for your big 4K screen, you’d be disappointed. It’s necro like a death metal cassette tape from 1989, and that’s also the point, I guess. On the other hand, you get a c o o l poster. And owning a physical copy of this rare little gem is cool in itself.

Writer and director: Shinichi Fukazawa
Also known as: The Japanese Evil Dead
Country & year: Japan, 2012
Actors: Shinichi Fukazawa, Masaaki Kai, Masahiro Kai, Aki Tama Mai, Asako Nosaka
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6403680/

Dead Talents Society (2024)

Posted on September 5, 2025September 5, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In the world of the living, we have Golden Globe Awards, while in the underworld they celebrate the Golden Ghost Awards. As the name implies, the awards are given to the ghosts that manages to scare as many people as possible, much aided with today’s social media where “scary videos“ are shared all over the internet. While it may sound like a silly award show made just for fun, there’s a darker backside to its popularity, something a rookie ghost girl (who is unnamed in the movie) discovers when she suddenly starts experiencing her body disintegrating. Much like we could see in Disney’s Coco (2017), the dead are at risk of disappearing if they are not remembered by the living. Rookie realizes that her piano competition certificate, which was her token in the world of the living that valued her existence the most, had been accidentally discarded when her family moved away from their house and her former home. Unlike the premise in Coco where you’d only disappear if no living person remembered you at all, the dead people in this movie have it much, much worse. Rookie will perish in 30 days as the result of her memory having faded due to the loss of her token. With the help of her ghost friend Camilla, she decides to join the entry contest for the Dead Talents Society, where a dead person can receive a permit to work as a ghost in the living world which must be signed by a haunting agency. What better way to keep being remembered by living people than constantly scaring the shit out of them and hopefully ending up in a viral video, right? And while Rookie’s performance at the entry contest is terrible, she catches the attention of a guy named Makoto, who is the agent of a washed-up ghost named Catherine. Together they try to make Rookie able to scare people so she can get her ghost working pass. No easy task, of course, when the competition is…deadly.

Dead Talents Society is a Taiwanese horror comedy from 2024 (released on Netflix this year) directed and co-written by John Hsu. After his success with Detention from 2019 which was based on a Taiwanese video game called Red Candle Games, he wanted to do something more lighthearted and funny. And he sure did! If the Beetlejuice movies had an Asian spinoff, then this movie would be as close as you could get. While Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) aimed a lot for nostalgia, this one aims more for a more modern audience where social media is a huge part of everyone’s life. And yes…for this millennial and old-fashioned Ghoul lady, that premise sounds like something totally out of my field of interest, but holy haunted fuck did this a movie turn on all my feel-good switches!

In Dead Talents Society you get presented with an afterlife that is colorful and vibrant, but also with its fair share of darkness. What makes the movie shine, though, are the interactions between the living and the dead, where the whole premise is that ghosts are desperately trying to scare people in hopes on becoming popular enough to avoid the fate of disappearing completely. And the deaddies in the afterworld have made an entire show for this, the Golden Ghost Awards (which is an obvious parody on the Golden Globe Awards). Needless to say, you’ll be getting more than a few references to real urban legends, Asian horror in general, and viral videos.

The characters are fun, with Rookie being the typical shy, lack-of-belief-in-herself character that keeps growing throughout the movie, aided by those around her. The defamed ghostress whose haunted hotel gig just isn’t as popular anymore, appears to be cold and arrogant while being much softer than she first leads you on to believe. Then you have fake-moustache-guy Makoto who’s got his own secrets. A loving group of misfits with dynamics filled with charm.

Just like how watching Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon makes you see slasher movies in a slightly different way afterwards, Dead Talents Society has the same effect on horror movies featuring ghosts. All the preparations to pull off the perfect scare, the perfect reaction from the living, making them notice things at just the right time…holy hell, how stressful that could actually be..! And this movie shows that off so perfectly, where they do everything from drawing letters on the wall at just the right time, moving a chair at the right moment, all totally dependent on getting their victim’s full attention in the hopes of conjuring up a scare big enough to become an urban legend. Poor ghosts, it must be a hell of a job indeed…so the next time I watch a horror movie with ghosts, I’m probably gonna think “I wonder how much stress and effort the ghost must have gone through to pull that off“…

The movie does have a fair share of social commentary/satire mixed in with all the silliness going on, including a very clever satire on the ghost-hunting YouTubers. Mostly, though, it’s a portray of the influencer lifestyles and how some people will literally do anything to keep from losing their fame. So many people are craving the attention to be seen, often chasing ridiculous trends in hopes of getting enough recognition and hopefully get that one successful viral video which will provide their continued success. Which, of course, is never really the case anyway. Even in the afterlife, some of the biggest hits from earlier are at the risk of oblivion as few things will stay equally popular forever, and if you get popular, it will always be a constant struggle to stay at the top. The movie mixes comedy with some intriguing themes of life and death, love and loss and the desire to be seen.

Dead Talents Society is so much fun, a high-energy horror-comedy with a lot of colorful spooks and even a bit of heart. A total feel-good film for everyone who wants something a bit spooky-silly!

Director: John Hsu
Writers: John Hsu, Tsai Kun-Lin
Country & year: Taiwan, 2024
Original title: Gui cai zhi dao
Actors: Gingle Wang, Sandrine Pinna, Zach Ireland, Chen Bolin, Yao Yiti, Nina Ye, Chang-Ying Hsieh, Pai Ching-I, Yen-Tzu Lin, He-Hsuan Lin
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17079606/

The Booth (2005)

Posted on April 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Shogo is the star of a popular call-in radio show, who is forced to broadcast from the infamous “Studio 6“ which is a creepy and abandoned booth. The last time someone used it was several years ago, when the DJ there committed suicide. Yay. Shogo is also a prime example of the douchebag breed, and of course he’s got some skeletons in the closet. His crew isn’t exactly treated fairly by him, either. When someone on the line starts whispering “liar“ to him, he starts fearing that someone knows about his troubled past. Or maybe…the studio is cursed and the same fate that fell on the previous DJ will also fall upon him? Shogo keeps getting more and paranoid.

The Booth is a J-Horror movie from 2005, written and directed by Yoshihiro Nakamura. The leading role in the movie is played by Ryûta Satô, and this was actually his first leading role. He’s most known for his role in the Netflix movie Fullmetal Alchemist from 2017.

There are many early 2000’s J-Horror films that are little known. Some for obvious reasons, while others never got the attention they deserved. The Booth falls a bit into the latter category, as it’s a very decent mystery horror film. It’s mostly a one-location movie, which focuses on the tension built from Shogo’s asshole-behaviour and creeping sense of unease as he fears that his bad attitude has started catching up on him. As the film opens with the reveal of the DJ having committed suicide in the notorious Studio 6, we already know that there might be some supernatural influences here. Or is there, really? The movie offers so many twists and turns underway, some which you’re very unlikely to see coming.

Limited location movies often depend a lot on the leading role character, and Ryûta Satô does a great job performing as the arrogant and despicable DJ Shogo. All throughout the movie, you get snippets from his past and several misdeeds, and there’s especially one that ends up revealing quite the unexpected turn of events. You don’t root for this guy at all, so you end up looking forward to see him get a bit of karma teeth on his ass. Whether or not it’s a curse, supernatural forces of some kind, or simply his barebones bad conscience that catches up with him…well, that’s something the movie keeps as a mystery until the very end.

The Booth is an obscure, creepy little J-Horror film, definitely worth a watch if you’re looking for a claustrophobic horror chamber film that will keep you guessing.

Writer and director: Yoshihiro Nakamura
Original title: Bûsu
Country & year: Japan, 2005
Actors: Maiko Asano, Makoto Ashikawa, Mansaku Ikeuchi, Seiko Iwaidô, Hijiri Kojima, Masaki Miura
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0760506/

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Posted on February 20, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Now, time for some J-splatter horror insanity to make your hair wet n’ sticky. Director Yoshihiro Nishimura had primarily worked as special makeup effects supervisor on numerous films since the early 1980s. After working on The Machine Girl, he was asked if he wanted to direct his first full-length feature for the American distributor Media Blasters. The result was a remake of his earlier student film Anatomia Extinction from 1995. Like most people in the Asian movie business, he worked fast and furiously and completed the film in only two weeks, and with some pretty amusing results.

We’re in a futuristic dystopian Tokyo where the police force has been privatized, and the city is now an out-of-control violent gore-zone. Tokyo is also being threatened by a scientist under the name “The Key Man” who, with a key-shaped virus, injects people around the city and turn them into mutants called “Engineers”. It’s even worse than it sounds and there seems to be an army of them that spreads like banana flies. So, who’s here to save the day? Say hello to Ruka (Eihi Shiina), the most skilled, cold-blooded and dangerous of the special police squad of “Engineer Hunters” who slices her targets in half with her blade like it was just a regular day. The actress behind Ruka is the same shy and quiet lady we saw in Takashi Miike’s Audition. Yes, that lady. She’s also deeply traumatized after witnessing her father, who worked as a police officer, getting his head blown to pieces like a big watermelon by an unknown assassin. The motive? Who knows. She deals with the pain by some self-mutilation while she’s obsessed about one day catching the one who killed her father.

And good luck with that. We get invited on a crazy, red-soaked journey where blood pours endlessly out of wounds like garden hoses, an effect that gets pretty old after a while as it gets overused to death. The use of blood was so messy and all over the place that the cameras had to be covered in plastic. So in that regard, the film surely lives up to the title.

It also has to be pointed out that Tokyo Gore Police is not to be taken one bit seriously. The film has a zany manga vibe in the same style as Meatball Machine and The Machine Girl, where we have silly fight scenes filled with video game logic and some other, bizarre, mind-bending WTF moments. There are many highlights and unique scenes here that include a cute mutant girl whose half body is formed like a hybrid of a snail and the mouth of a crocodile that chews some poor guys’ dick off. We also have a mutant guy with a big elephant trunk as a penis which he uses as a machine gun. A chair urinates on a crowd in a fetish club. Yes, really. And there’s much more. Also watch out for a minigun that shoots fist knuckles. To amp up the madness all up to eleven, the film is sprinkled with some spicy satire aimed at Japan’s extreme trend of suicides. The most notable is the cute, colorful billboard commercials around the city where pre-teen girls in school uniforms joyfully promotes the new hot thing on the market The wrist cutter. Kawaii! Only in Japan, as we say.

And of course, the big question is: Is this the goriest film ever made? No, but it’s certainly on the top ten list. Tokyo Gore Police is overall a fun watch, but drags somewhere in the middle. It’s wild and experimental, which mostly works best as a creative showcase of old school special effects.

Yoshihiro Nishimura was planning a sequel at some time, but that doesn’t seem to happen. Anyway, he’s had a pretty fruitful career as director since TGP and made films such as Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl and Helldriver, which also seems worth checking out.

Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Writers: Kengo Kaji, Maki Mizui, Yoshihiro Nishimura
Original title: Tôkyô zankoku keisatsu
Country & year: Japan, 2008
Actors: Eihi Shiina, Itsuji Itao, Yukihide Benny, Jiji Bû, Ikuko Sawada, Cay Izumi, Mame Yamada, Ayano Yamamoto, Akane Akanezawa, Tsugumi Nagasawa
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183732/

Tokyo Gore Police Trailer from Derek Lieu on Vimeo.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman (2007)

Posted on December 15, 2023June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In a Japanese town, stories about Kuchisake-onna (The Slit-Mouthed Woman) are spread around. She’s a woman who’s got her mouth slit from side to side, dressed in a coat and wearing a face mask to conceal her looks. Carrying a rusty pair of scissors in her hands, it is said that she kidnaps children and kill them. She also asks those she meets on the street if they think she’s pretty, where the wrong answer will lead to horrible consequences. All of this, of course, sounds like a bunch of superstitious baloney, and only the children are taking this ridiculous story seriously while the adults just scoff at it. That is, until several children start disappearing. One day, a child even gets kidnapped right in front of the school teacher Matsuzaki. Together with her colleague she tries to uncover the truth about the legend of the “slit-mouthed woman”.

The Slit-Mouthed Woman (aka Carved) is based on a Japanese legend about the Kuchisake-onna, which is said to originate from sometime between year 794 and 1185, where the story is that a beautiful woman was mutilated by her jealous husband. He suspected her of being unfaithful to him, and thus he wanted to destroy her appearance. Later, it is said that she became a vengeful spirit who wanted to inflict the same pain and suffering on others as she experienced herself. The legend has many variations, and this movie has its own way of telling this story, set in a modern time.

The movie is directed by Kôji Shiraishi, who seems to have been directing a load of movies every year for quite some time, and is also the director of the found-footage/mockumentary horror movie Noroi (2005). Like many J-Horror movies, the supernatural is looming over everything, but the difference here is that it’s also mixing elements from a typical western slasher flick, which makes it an interesting combination. There is a bit of mystery, tension, and murders, all merged with the unmistakable dread-filled atmosphere of the supernatural J-Horror film. The makeup of The Slit-Mouthed Woman is decent, she’s genuinely creepy despite seeing her in full daylight most of the time, and unlike many J-Horror movies with ghostly villains, this one has a lot of scenes shot during the day.

The movie has a dark atmosphere and relies on some drama in order to fuel the characters as it becomes clear they also have their inner demons to struggle with, which they must come to terms with before trying to take on The Slit-Mouthed Woman. While the movie is somewhat predictable, and is not able to avoid the mistake of slowing things down a little too much during the second half of the movie, it’s still a very decent J-Horror movie about a well-known Japanese urban legend.

Director: Kôji Shiraishi
Writers: Naoyuki Yokota, Kôji Shiraishi
Original title: Kuchisake-onna
Also known as: Carved
Country & year: Japan, 2007
Actors: Eriko Satô, Haruhiko Katô, Chiharu Kawai, Rie Kuwana, Kazuyuki Matsuzawa, Kaori Sakagami, Sakina Kuwae, Yûto Kawase, Rio Nakamura, Ryôko Takizawa
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0891520/