Japanese horror movies can be straightly terrifying, weirdly bizarre, or a combination of them. While some horror movies like Ringu or Ju-on focus on the scary side, others like Dead Sushi or Tokyo Gore play more on the comedy and grotesque side. In between these extremes, there is a world of creepy and disturbing movies with somehow a goofy or silly side. A great example is Hausu from 1977, a visually brilliant and pretty weird movie (for which I also wrote an analysis at the very beginning of this blog: Hausu: a pioneer, surreal and weird japanese movie). Personally, this weirdness is especially interesting when referring to creature design. Because if a monster can still generate an uneasy and disturbing atmosphere, even more so because of its weird design, it is a very interesting point for the movie. Many of these movies spend a lot of effort in practical effects, creating a festival of weird abominations and gory effects. There are probably many movies hidden somewhere on the internet behind the language barrier, and I hope to find more in the future.
Recently, I posted on my official Twitter account about Japanese horror movies with weird monsters, asking also an opinion to people. To my surprise, this became my most viral tweet, with 26k likes and 1.4 million views (HERE the link if interested). There were many interesting suggestions there, so I decided to expand that tweet into an article. A special thanks goes to the people who replied and retweeted the original tweet.
So welcome to my analysis about Japanese horror movies with weird monsters, jumping from silly to pretty terrifying. There are also more movies not analyzed in this article, so for those who could be interested, I created also an IMDB list including more titles:
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls521609028/
Death Forest
Based on the indie game with the same name, Death Forest is a saga of 5 movies released in Japan between 2014 and 2016. The first movie features a group of friends taking a detour into a forest infested with weird entities. The following movies are less creepy and almost slasher-like, with a lot of blood and weird killings. The movies have two kinds of entities. The first one is a group of pale and bold humanoid creatures, very thin and disturbing, which moves only when in complete darkness. However, the star of the movie is definitively the giant pale cannibal floating head. This very silly yet creepy villain has a dumb and disturbing expression on its face and tends to float around like a balloon. The monster is not to be underestimated, regardless of the silly look, because it can devour a person with a single bite. The floating head will quickly leave the forest in the following movies, devouring schoolgirls inside a school at night, and even floating above Shibuya 101.
What to expect:
- A giant floating head working as a horror Pacman and devouring everybody;
- Pale old men eating people when not under a light;
- The giant pale head will devour people everywhere in Japan, from schools to Shibuya.
Fuan no Tane (Pet Peeve)
Fuan no Tane is a series of manga by Masaaki Nakayama. They are probably one of the few manga around that can be compared with Junji Ito’s works, especially in portraying inexplicable beings manifesting in rural Japanese towns. Since many stories are practically plotless, solved in a couple of pages, and with a sort of jump scare in the end, making a movie about it was not an uneasy task. At least for me, this was not such a bad result. The movie describes the many inexplicable accidents happening in the fictional town of xxx through the eyes of 3 characters. The story is very convoluted and twisted, with many things happening in different timelines but not told in any chronological order. I will avoid spoilers so I stop here with the plot, I just say that there is really a lot going on. Entities are terrifying and well-represented, sometimes following famous stories from the manga, and other times implementing novel ideas. From grotesque men appearing during blackouts to kids with something very bad going on in their faces, these beings are definitively weird and disturbing. The movie combines CGI with practical effects, and the results are always quite believable, with few exceptions such as the half-man. Moreover, I really appreciate the small details going around, like long shots of the sky with clouds that look “too much” like humans.
What to expect:
- Grotesque beings appearing at any moment;
- Insane mannequins looking for their hand;
- Straw-faced women;
- A good kid with something really twisted on his face;
- A not-so-good kid with something really twisted on his face;
- A procession of eyes crawling on a highway.
Cult
Koji Shiraishi is a weird Japanese director, mostly known for his horror mockumentaries. Noroi is a masterpiece on how to direct a found footage horror movie, with very creepy scenes and a great ending. However, another of his movies is even weirder. Cult explores a house where paranormal phenomena are happening, and apparently, the whole neighborhood could be involved. The protagonists are a group of idols but soon the cringe exorcist Neo (yes, same as that Neo) will be involved. But if you are already imagining the classic poltergeist or ghost, things will go far more into the bizarre. The entities are weird creatures of tentacles and shadows, including deadly thin shadows, and a sort of shadow octopus dog. The monsters are far from being well realized, and the bad CGI cannot hide behind the found footage technique. However, this is part of the homemade feeling of Koji Shiraishi’s movie, so it is a give or take.
What to expect:
- A ghost dog head with shadow tentacles going out from the neck;
- A thin shadow harbinger of death;
- The weirdest exorcism and its bizarre consequences.
Japanese Doll of Terror
If you just see an image of the aforementioned Japanese doll in the movie, you know to be here for a very silly slasher. After all, how many slasher movies have as enemy a humanoid doll with a gigantic head wielding a chainsaw? The movie sees a group of people, apparently not connected, participating in a mysterious party in a secluded camp to win a lot of money. Of course, things will go wrong and blood will quickly start to spill. However, the game is a lot less violent than you could expect, and many killings happen outside camera view. The plot mixes revenge and a cursed doll, but the final revelation is not satisfactory at all. In general, this is not a good movie by any metric, but if you want to see a big-headed doll killing people, this is your movie.
What to expect:
- A doll running through the woods while wielding a chainsaw;
- A doll stabbing people with a big cooking fork;
- A doll smashing people with a hammer;
- Well, you got the idea, a killing doll.
Tomie Unlimited
Tomie Unlimited is somehow the worst and best adaptation of Junji Ito’s work. Because even if the movie can be sometimes more silly than creepy, it goes at full speed regarding grotesque body horror. The movie is a festival of hideous abominations born from Tomie’s hatched body, all packed into this 90-minute movie. The main actress does a good job of portraying the spoiled and selfish behavior typical of Tomie, while some grotesque practical effects, together with a not exceptional CGI, help to shape the body horror. Because there will be blood, and a lot of it. The movie is a roller-coaster of absurd, innovative, and shocking scenes, something that will test your stomach and mind. Seriously, you will see from a collection of small heads combining their tongues in a huge tentacle to a gigantic woman’s head generating centipedes made of hair… and other heads.
What to expect:
- A beheaded body with a small disfigured head inside the neck, running around doing silly sounds and moves while still being quite creepy;
- Several disturbing heads, including trees made of heads;
- And centipedes made of hair and faces;
- To conclude with mini-heads packed inside a lunch-box.
Vampire Clay
Visually insane and unexpectedly gory, Vampire Clay is definitively born in the wrong decade, looking more like an underground 80s masterpiece. Sure, the premise of cursed clay feeding on blood is silly, and the appearance of the main enemy is far from terrifying, and yet, this movie is a hidden gem. The plot revolves around a countryside art class creating clay statues. By accident, they will use the wrong clay. Yes, exactly that clay that was buried in a sealed bag underground. From there, Vampire Clay does everything unexpectedly. Every kill is brilliantly executed, visually elaborated, and totally unnerving. The movie is violent, but the focus on clay allows the creation of memorable practical effects. From clay beings mimicrying people and modifying their bodies into grotesque body horror to colossal worms full of faces of the people devoured, the movie is a rollercoaster of weird but clever ideas. The focus on claymation and practical effects make everything extremely believable, and some scenes are truly brilliant, such as analyzing how the clay monster regenerates and damages from the inside in a feverish and surreal close-up. And what to say about the last 5 minutes of the ending? Simply brilliant and almost kaiju-like.
What to expect:
- Small clay demons hiding inside bodies;
- Every possible body horror involving bodies made of clay;
- The small demons growing a big clay mouth trying to swallow people whole;
- A colossal clay worm.
Unholy Women (segment Hagane)
Unholy Women is a collection of 3 short movies. While all the stories are quite good, with the first segment involving time loops and a stalking monster woman with many arms, I will focus especially on the second story. The movie is called Hagane, and it tells the story of a young man convinced by his boss to hang out with his sister. But she is not as in the picture, and the boy soon realizes it when he sees the boss pumping some food through a tube connected to a woman half hidden in a bag. Because Hagane is a woman from the hips down, and “something else” on the way up, which is always wrapped up in a raw bag. Imagine this movie like a dating simulator with an eldritch being. Everything about Hagane is completely weird, grotesque, and terrifying. She expresses only by painting with her feet and making some weird sounds, clearly not human. She is also fast, strong, and apparently immortal, or at least extremely resilient. Somehow, she is also an empathic creature, and the boy is kind of attracted to her because of her legs. But then, their weird infatuation will become a game of cat a mouse, with grotesque and comedy moments, including Hagan shooting him with a dart gun as if it was a rifle. The movie does a brilliant job of never disclosing what Hagane is or what is hiding under the bag. But you will see weird things going down from it, including insects, raw flesh, and blades. Even if you don’t like the other two movies, the supreme weirdness of Hagane alone is still worth watching Unholy Women.
What to expect:
- A woman hiding under a raw bag acting like an eldritch being;
- She likes to write using people’s blood and her feet;
- She has defensive blades and can shoot with a dart gun;
- She wants so much to have sex with the protagonist. Will she succeed and what will happen then?
Hiruko the Goblin
A movie following the insane formula of the late 70s and early 80s Japanese horror movies, including the masterpiece Hausu. Hiruko the Goblin is a feverish dream mixing horror and comedy, heavily influenced by Evil Dead and The Thing. Hiruko the Goblin is an explosion of bizarre yet disturbing creatures, with a duo of silly protagonists. One of them is an archeologist obsessing about creating weird gadgets, definitively not a brave hero, while the other is a student with burning faces appearing on his back. This movie is stylish and well-realized, with twisted camera movements and close-ups, and a really good balance of horror and comedy without ever falling into the bad taste. Hiruko tries to dig into alternative mythology, with tales about existing gods, forgotten fictional gods, and ancient hidden tombs. The movie mixes occult and folklore to create its grotesque creatures, instead of using alien lifeforms such as in The Thing. And from the creatures’ point, Hiruko is basically the answer to what if the infamous “walking head scene” from The Thing was an entire movie. The main enemies of Hiruko are crawling disembodied human heads, walking on top of grotesque spider-like limbs. The practical result is always grotesque and disturbing, and you will also see variations of this theme, with flying heads or more alien creations. Of course, since decapitation is a main theme of the movie, you can expect a lot of blood.
What to expect:
- Disembodied heads walking on alien spider limbs;
- Tentacles going out from the mouth;
- Songs that convince people into self-decapitation;
- Disgusting folkloric creatures hidden in another dimension;
- Entities moving with crazy cameras like Deadites in Evil Dead.
Surreal and Creepy 