Japanese Cult Cinema

Burst City is an explosive Molotov cocktail of dystopian sci-fi, Mad Max-style biker wars against yakuza gangsters and the police, and riotous performances from members of the real-life Japanese punk bands The Stalin, The Roosters, The Rockers and INU. In a derelict industrial wasteland on the outskirts of Tokyo, two rival punk bands and their unruly mobs of fans ga...Read More

Blood and guts are the ultimate weapon! In the near future, the Tokyo Police Corporation is locked in a bloody war with the engineers. These genetically modified super-criminals can bio-fuse their open wounds with weapons, turning self-mutilation into a combat form. Ruka, the daughter of a murdered police officer, is now the top engineer hunter. With cold-blooded ef...Read More

Shozin Fukui’s live-action, underground cyberpunk masterpiece depicts the nightmarish journey of a discarded cybernetic sex android that is expelled from a brothel and left to fend for himself. Aimlessly wandering around the city, Pinocchio meets Kyoto, an amnesiac homeless girl with a horrible secret of her own. Together, they try to piece together their past lives...Read More

Alternately known as "The Japanese Evil Dead," this legendary, sought after independent 1995 Japanese cult film will enjoy its first ever North American release! Trapped inside a haunted house, a body builder must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a demonic ghost that is hell-bent on revenge.

A TV station employee takes a camera crew out to an abandoned factory to investigate a purported snuff film that was made there, only to end up running for her life. Nami hosts a late night home video program. She receives a tape which appears to be a real snuff film. She and her crew investigate the location where she meets a man looking for his brother who warns h...Read More

Two woodcutters head into the mountains to fell an ancient tree. Caught in a snowstorm, they spend the night in a mountain lodge, where a female spirit appears and takes the life of one of the men. She spares the other man's life on the condition that he never tell anyone what happened that night. The woodcutter (Akira Ishihama, Harakiri) goes on to marry the myster...Read More

Yuki once led a peaceful life with her loving parents, but her family's happiness was taken away suddenly one day by a group wearing black cloaks. Fashioning herself into an elegant, parasol-twirling, goth-styled demon of vengeance, Yuki sets off to enact the ultimate payback. Outrageous, eye-popping special effects were created by the master of visceral visuals, Yo...Read More

Hailed by critics, Fudoh: The New Generation is the film that brought director Takashi Miike to the attention of international cinema audiences. Prepare yourself to experience Miike's extreme and virtuoso filmmaking in this gangster thriller that set the pace for his later classics like Audition and Ichi The Killer. Riki Fudoh appears to be an ordinary high school s...Read More

From the director of Battle Royale 2 and the screenwriter of the Death Note movies, X-Cross is a "demented slice of midnight movie bliss" (Dread Central)! Shiyori, a young lady trying to mend her broken heart after the end of a relationship, is off to the hot springs for a therapeutic soak with her friend Aiko. The quiet country village turns out to be home to a cul...Read More

After terrifying audiences worldwide with the blockbuster J-horror classic Ring and its sequel, director Hideo Nakata returned to the genre for Dark Water, another highly atmospheric, and critically acclaimed, tale of the supernatural which took the common theme of the "dead wet girl" to new heights of suspense and drama. Based upon on a short story by Ring author K...Read More

Two happy-go-lucky electricians go out on a job expecting it will be just like any other work day only to find themselves suddenly zapped into a violent virtual reality war zone! The Zone is an alternate dimension created by Iria, a cute but badass bounty hunter, and Bob, her computer side-kick, to capture and destroy Zeiram, an evil alien creature! Soon, the bumbli...Read More

From director Keita Amemiya: The darkest force of destruction is now the only hope for salvation! In the far future, peace and violence walk hand in hand in Jesus Town, a false utopia ruled by the iron fist of Gurjev and his cyborg enforcer Michael. After a long imprisonment, Hakaider the destroyer, is enlisted in the rebel fight. Suddenly aware of the new menace, G...Read More

The masterpiece of Japanese Cyberpunk Body Horror. A strange man known only as the "metal fetishist", who seems to have an insane compulsion to stick scrap metal into his body, is hit and possibly killed by a Japanese "salaryman", out for a drive with his girlfriend. The salaryman then notices that he is being slowly overtaken by some kind of disease that is turning...Read More

Noroi: The Curse, directed by Kôji Shiraishi, is a bone-chilling masterpiece of found-footage horror presented in a pseudo-documentary format. The film follows Masafumi Kobayashi, a seasoned investigative reporter specializing in paranormal phenomena, as he embarks on what becomes his most harrowing case yet. Through unsettling archival footage, interviews, and firs...Read More

A man wakes in an asylum with no memory. Dr Wakabayashi helps him to recall his past in which he killed his bride on their wedding day. Part of his memory becomes linked to another doctor, Dr Masaki, and a manuscript, Dogra Magra. The final feature film by Toshio Matsumoto (Funeral Parade of Roses) is an adaptation of the celebrated novel by Kyusaku Yumeno, a period...Read More

Director Kenji Misumi (Lone Wolf and Cub) and writer Fuji Yahiro (Sansho the Bailiff, A Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji) turn the quintessential Japanese ghost story into a profoundly resonant doomed romance, with chilling ghost scenes that would leave a deep mark on the creators of J-horror. Samurai Iemon (Kazuo Hasegawa, Gate of Hell) has grown distant from his wife O...Read More

"Dedicated to medicine... and the cold-blooded destruction of men!" Madame O is a classic and controversial tale of revenge from late 1960s Japan. Director Seiichi Fukuda uses widescreen cinematography and a strange mix of both black and white and color imagery to paralyze audiences with gore, nudity and shocking violence.

A killer is on the loose in Japan. Young women are being horribly mutilated. Aki, a young woman who works as a film projectionist, is haunted by a childlike ghost. Her girlfriend Emi is a TV news reporter covering the horrible mutilations. Emi introduces Aki to Kurahashi, a married man with a haunted past. Everyone involved has a dark secret and something evil is ta...Read More

Noble samurai Shinzaburo (Kojiro Hongo, Gamera) is visited one night by the beautiful courtesan Otsuyu (Miyoko Akaza, Lady Snowblood). She pleads with him to marry her and save her from life in a brothel. Instantly captivated by her beauty, Shinzaburo agrees and a cautious love affair develops, but in his infatuation, he fails to realise that Otsuyu is a ghost. His ...Read More

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba is a martial arts "manimal" in the ultra-70's, 100% bizarre mixture of horror, action and sci-fi that is Wolf Guy, one of the rarest and most sought-after cult films produced by Japan's Toei Studio. Based on a manga by Kazumasa Hirai (creator of 8 Man), and never before released outside of Japan, it's a genre film classic waiting to be discove...Read More

Blind Beast is a masterpiece of erotic horror that explores the all-encompassing and overwhelming relationship between the artist and his art and the obsessive closed world that the artist inhabits, with maestro director Yasuzō Masumura (Giants and Toys, Irezumi) conjuring up a hallucinogenic dreamworld in which sensual and creative urges combine with a feverish int...Read More

The Sushi Bites Back! Dead Sushi (デッド寿司, Deddo sushi) is a Japanese culinary comedy-horror from director Noboru Iguchi. Keiko, the daughter of a legendary sushi chef, runs away from home when his Karate-style regimen becomes too severe. Finding work at a rural hot springs inn, she is ridiculed by the eccentric staff and guests.