Directed by Hideo Nakata • 1998 • Japan
Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani
The film that launched the craze for J-horror in the West, director Hideo Nakata’s international sensation melded traditional Japanese folklore with contemporary anxieties about the spread of technology for a chilling experience unlike anything that had come before. A group of teenage friends are found dead, their bodies grotesquely contorted, their faces twisted in terror. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), a journalist and the aunt of one of the victims, sets out to investigate the shocking phenomenon, and in the process uncovers a creepy urban legend about a supposedly cursed videotape, the contents of which cause anyone who views it to die within a week—unless they can persuade someone else to watch it, and, in so doing, pass on the curse.
Up Next in Horror
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Directed by Jaromil Jireš • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
Starring Jaroslava Schallerová, Helena Anyžová, Petr KoprivaA girl on the verge of womanhood finds herself in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and other threats in this eerie and mystical movie daydream. VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WON...
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The Most Dangerous Game
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel • 1932 • United States
Starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie BanksOne of the best and most literate movies from the great days of horror, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME stars Leslie Banks as a big-game hunter with a taste for the world’s most exotic ...
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M
Directed by Fritz Lang • 1931 • Germany
A simple, haunting musical phrase whistled offscreen tells us that a young girl will be killed. "Who Is the Murderer?" pleads a nearby placard as serial killer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) closes in on little Elsie Beckmann... In his harrowing masterwork M, ...
