One of the creepiest and most influential subgenres of international horror is getting the documentary treatment, with Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp’s The J-Horror Virus.
The feature-length doc will follow the ‘J-horror boom’ of the late ’90s and early ’00s, featuring some of the biggest names in the genre, including Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure), Shin’ya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man), Takashi Shimizu (Ju-On), Masayuki Ochiai (Infection) and Mari Asato (Fatal Frame). Rie Inoo and Takako Fuji, the actresses behind two of the most terrifying icons of Japanese horror (Ringu‘s Sadako and Ju-On‘s Kayako respectively) will also feature.
Here’s the official synopsis:
The J-Horror Virus is a feature-length documentary charting the origins, evolution and diffusion across the world of a distinctive brand of made-in-Japan supernatural chillers that seeped into the global consciousness at the turn of the millennium, films featuring vengeful ghosts manifesting themselves through contemporary technology again a backdrop of urban alienation and social decay. From its origins in Teruyoshi Ishii’s 1988 fake documentary Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Norio Tsuruta’s seminal Scary True Stories (1991/92) straight-to-video series, through such key titles as Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), critics and the films’ makers reflect on how the bleak dystopic visions and unsettling atmospheres that made these works so unique infiltrated their way across the world.
As one of the directors behind the FANGORIA Chainsaw award-nominated The Found Footage Phenomenon and director/producer of the upcoming Severin Films doc Damaged: The Very British Obscenity of David Hamilton-Grant, Appleton is no stranger to highlighting subgenres that make up the horror landscape. Co-director Sharp brings his expertise to the topic as the co-founder of Midnight Eye, a website on Japanese film, and book publications including The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003, joint-written with Tom Mes), Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (2008) and The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (2011).
The J-Horror Virus doesn’t yet have a release date, so keep an eye out for further updates! Now, here’s the trailer (and we take no responsibility for any creepy cursed phone calls you might get after watching…)
