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Each of the three films included in Radiance’s Daiei Gothic: Japanese Ghost Stories is based on a classic Japanese tale that’s been adapted to film various times over the past century. This speaks to the remarkably timeless and universal nature of the stories, evoking real-life experiences and themes that are common to humans across time and culture.

The earliest film in the set, Misumi Kenji’s Yotsuya Ghost Story, is based on perhaps the most popular kaidan, or ghost story, in Japan. It’s so popular, in fact, that it was also adapted in 1959 by another filmmaker, Nakagawa Nobuo. While that adaptation, The Ghost of Yotsuya, has been more widely available in the West until now, it’s Misumi’s film that veers more radically from the traditional beats of the kaidan, filling in a tale of good and evil with striking layers of ambiguity and feeling.

Where...

In 1929, the Academy Awards were established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to celebrate global excellence in the film industry. While it had its fair share of detractors over the years, the Academy has managed to navigate through the mire of controversies, especially the touchy topic of racial and cultural representation (case in point: #OscarsSoWhite movement), to stay relevant throughout its illustrious history.

Asian Films have been honoured starting with the 19th edition of the Awards when they were first given as a special honorary prize for the Best Foreign Film released in the USA. Nine years later, the prize became a competitive one and a winner was chosen from within a pool of predominantly non-English nominees.

Seven illustrious motion pictures from within Asia have clinched this top honour but many others, some of which are amongst the most iconic of Asian cinema, have been nominated and acknowledged as well.

Though there had been earlier efforts, like Ealing Studios’s Dead of Night from 1945, the horror anthology film came into its own in the 1960s with titles like Kobayashi Masaki’s Kwaidan and the Poe-centric Spirits of the Dead from directors Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, and Federico Fellini. Hammer Films’s rival Amicus churned out no fewer than seven of them in a 10-year period starting with Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors. But the one that really got the omnibus rolling was Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath from 1963, an Italian-American co-production that resulted in two different versions of the film.

After the success of 1960’s Black Sunday, American International Pictures took a more active hand in producing several of Bava’s later films, altering them in the process to suit American audiences that tended to skew younger. The Aip cut of Black Sabbath rearranges its three segments, tones down some...

Kenneth Branagh’s “Haunting in Venice” is a dark, moody ghost story that, no doubt, will draw comparisons to numerous haunted house movies, both classic and contemporary. The film, the third in Branagh’s series of Agatha Christie adaptations, tells the story of detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) as he investigates the death of a young girl and the belief by her mother (Kelly Reilly) that angry spirits were involved.

For the film’s cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, there were several classic film inspirations he and Branagh discussed for the film’s look. “We looked at ‘The Innocents’,” Zambarloukos told TheWrap, citing the 1961 feature film starring Deborah Kerr. “We also looked at ‘Kwaidan’, which is a Japanese ghost story,” he said. “They all had a certain eloquence.”

Another major reference, especially considering the belief from those in the movie that a murder has happened, was the 1967 true crime film “In Cold Blood.

Jizo statues are a fascinating part of Japanese folklore. Often sighted near Buddhist temples, graveyards and sometimes on roadsides, they provide protection to travelers and the souls of children and unborn babies. They can be small and unassuming, with friendly faces like a classic Buddha, but sculpted more in the shape of a garden gnome. One such statue can be found in Sayama City on a small modern-day intersection; the statue and adjoining temple have been there for over 300 years, standing as a preserved relic of the Edo era, but the world around it has changed drastically. It sits awkwardly in the road, like a chunky doorstop that wedges open a portal between the past and present; Sayama resident and director Mitsuo Kurihara has built a strange, whimsical story around that very idea with his extravagantly-titled micro-budget feature film, “The Haunted Jizo of Shimo-Mizuno, Sayama City”.

“The Haunted Jizo of Shimo-Mizuno,...

by Cláudio Alves

This month, in the Criterion Channel, there's a spotlight on Kwaidan, the Masaki Kobayashi classic that became the first significant example of Japanese horror to reach international audiences. You can find critic Grady Hendrix exploring the 1964 anthology on the streaming service, but that's far from the only reason you should check it out. Kwaidan collects four ghost stories that, together, form cinematic poetry of ravishing beauty. No wonder Kobayashi's film has entranced The Film Experience for years. Dancin' Dan once wrote about Kwaidan for the Oscar Horrors series, Nathaniel and Juan Carlos discussed it in podcast form, and I highlighted its costuming for an idealized Oscar ballot. 

Still, it's never a wrong time to re-consider Kwaidan, to get lost anew in its visual splendor...

Alena Lodkina’s first feature, “Strange Colours” (2017) took her deep into the Australian outback, to the rough-as-guts opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge, before bringing her to the Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered. It augured a distinctive new mood in Australian cinema – understated but keenly observed; a little sinister – as represented in recent editions of Rotterdam (David Easteal’s “The Plains”; James Vaughan’s “Friends & Strangers”) and Cannes (Thom Wright’s “The Stranger”).

Her second feature, produced by Kate Laurie at Arenamedia and funded by Screen Australia, VicScreen, the Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund, Sbs, and Orange Entertainment, takes its bow at the 75th Locarno Film Festival.

In the evasively-titled “Petrol,” the Russian-born filmmaker turns her gaze towards the city she calls home: the film ascribes a certain kind of decadent mystique to Melbourne, where Lodkina has lived for the last 10 years. “You don’t see cities portrayed in Australia that much,...

H.P. Lovecraft's novella, "At the Mountains of Madness," is no stranger to rejection. Initially pitched to the sci-fi magazine "Weird Tales" in 1931, it was rejected by the publisher for being too long. Several decades later, filmmaker and horror auteur Guillermo del Toro has been trying to adapt this same story about an ambitious team of arctic explorers into a feature film, but he's long had troubles convincing major studios to back it. To some, it would seem that the big screen is just not in the cards for this particular Lovecraftian excursion, but del Toro hasn't given up hope just yet.

"At the Mountains...

The post Guillermo del Toro Has Been Fighting to Adapt This Book for 15 Years appeared first on /Film.

[Trigger warning: Q&a includes references to Sa.] A bold and powerful short film about using the powers of imagination and creativity to escape real-life horrors that no one should ever have to experience, Grummy is one of the most successfully funded short films in Kickstarter history. With Grummy now available to watch in its entirety for free on YouTube (trigger warning: video includes references to Sa), we caught up with the film's writers and directors, Micheline Pitt and R.H. Norman, in a new Q&a feature to discuss the importance of making Grummy to help other survivors of abuse, working with the movie's talented cast and crew, and the vital steps you can take to help support victims of abuse in real life.

Thank you for taking the time to answer questions for us, Micheline and R.H., and congratulations on your new short film, Grummy. Micheline, I understand that Grummy is a very personal story about...

by Nathaniel R

Have you either of these classics of mid 60s international cinema? In one of the strangest timetables in Oscar history, both of these two film's leading ladies were honored with Best Actress Oscar nominations but neither in the year their film was honored:  Sophia Loren (Marriage Italian Style) was nominated for Best Actress in 1964; Ida Kaminska (The Shop on Main Street) was nominated for Best Actress in 1966; inbetween those Oscar years the films themselves were nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1965 (now called Best International Feature Film).  

I was thrilled to rejoin Juan Carlos Ojano on "One Inch Barrier" to discuss 1965's Best international race, a strong vintage, which also included the family drama Blood on the Land (Greece), the very horny Dear John (Sweden), and the supernatural Kwaidan (Japan). We discuss Best Actress, Oscar's resistance to Asian cinema, sex in cinema, and Sophia Loren's magnetism.

Probably the most “serious” film Miike has shot lately among the raving madness of productions like “The Mole Song” and “Yakuza Apocalypse”, “Over Your Dead Body” stands apart for two other reasons. The protagonist is the famous kabuki actor Ichikawa Ebizo XI, and the script is based on the quintessential Japanese horror tale of “The Ghost Story of Yotsuya” (Yotsuya Kaidan), although Miike’s style had a definite say in the final outcome.

The film follows a theatre troupe as they rehearse a play where a samurai seduces a woman and then murders her disapproving father, in order to inherit his estate. However, when he is offered the granddaughter of another wealthy man, his true colors are disclosed to his wife, who eventually returns as a ghost to hunt him. In actual life within the movie, the female star of the film named Miyuki Goto has pulled...

This article contains Mass Effect Legendary Edition spoilers.

BioWare has published an extensive report about player choices in Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and they reveal (among other things) that a lot of you really don’t like Kaidan and felt that he needed to be the one to die on Virmire.

Before we dive into that part of the report, though, it should be said that the entire infographic breakdown is actually quite interesting. For instance, this section reveals that the average player-created Shepard is a male soldier who was an Earthborn survivor. Based on what we’ve seen in other RPG character creation reports, none of that information is that surprising.

There are a few surprises found throughout the stat sheet, though. For instance, a shocking 93% of Mass Effect players chose to save the Rachni Queen and then ally themselves with the Rachni Queen in Mass Effect 3. It would...

Masaki Kobayashi’s six-part adaptation of the book by Jumpei Gomikawa may be the most ambitious, most truthful film about the big-picture reality of war. Idealist Tatsuya Nakadai thinks he can avoid complicity in human evil by volunteering as a civilian to manage a work camp in occupied Manchuria, only to find that he’s expected to starve and torture Chinese slave laborers. Resistance leads to his conscription in a brutal boot camp, and his deployment on the Northern front as the Russians invade leads to an extended struggle to survive amid mounting horrors. There’s no escape: the ‘human condition’ is that barbarity is a given, a constant. It’s nine hours of suffering that can change one’s world view.

The Human Condition

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 480

1959-61 / B&w / 2:39 anamorphic widescreen / 575 min. / Ningen no jôken / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 8, 2021 / 59.95

Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai,...

Masaki Kobayashi is one of the most internationally recognized Japanese directors of his era, with many of his films still receiving continued and undiminished critical acclaim. The ghost anthology “Kwaidan”, the samurai films “Samurai Rebellion” and “Harakiri” and the anti-war epic “The Human Condition” are some of his films to remain highly regarded. In 1956, Kobayashi tackled the businesslike nature of Japan’s sports industry in a film with an extremely provoking title: “I Will Buy You”.

Daisuke Kishimoto is a talent scout working for the professional baseball team Toyo Flowers. He is sharp, no-nonsense and relentless in his ways to acquire new players for the team. His latest target is a promising pitcher, but the assignment fails when he finds out that the promising talent is recovering from losing a finger in an accident at the factory he works in. Kishimoto’s character is revealed further when...

In the district of the Mino Mountains, the locals believe that there is a legendary female spirit who comes out at night and kills anyone who’s unfortunate enough to lay eyes on her. This horror folktale of the snow woman was also one of the four stories told in Masaki Kobayashi’s “Kwaidan” (StrangeTales) from 1965.

Yosaku is an orphan, an apprentice who works for master sculptor Shigetomo. The movie starts off with them looking for a suitable tree to carve a statue of the goddess of mercy for their temple. However, they’re caught in a snow storm on their back prompting them to take refuge in a rundown cabin. During the night, the evil snow spirit pays them a visit and freezes the old sculptor to death. Being enchanted by Yosaku’s innocence looks, she spares his life but on the promise that he has to keep the encounter a secret.

Since the last round up 6 more countries have announced Oscar submissions bringing the total of competing films to 43.

Belgium - Working Girls  A drama about three women from France crossing the border daily to Belgium for sex work Indonesia - Impetigore (previously discussed) Usually there's a random horror movie somewhere in the submission list but this year we have not one but two Asian horror movies (the other is Roh/Soul from Malaysia). The only horror movie we can think of to be successfully nominated in this category was a very long time ago with Japan's Kwaidan (1964).  Iran - Sun Children (previously discussed)  Kenya - The Letter This is the first time Kenya has submitted a documentary (the nomination for Honeyland last year seems to have embolded various countries to send docs as it looks like there will be more of them than usual this year) Lesotho -This is Not a Burial,...

Exclusive: Netflix has put in development an epic live-action series based on Conan, the iconic sword-and-sorcery character created by writer Robert E. Howard, I have learned.

I hear the project, from Fredrik Malmberg and Mark Wheeler’s Pathfinder Media, is the first in a deal between Netflix and Conan Properties International, owned by Malmberg’s Cabinet Entertainment. The pact gives Netflix the exclusive option to acquire rights to the Conan literary library and develop works across TV and film, both live-action and animated.

The move would fit into Netflix’s strategy of acquiring globally recognizable IP to build an universe of films and TV series, including Roald Dahl’s novels, The Chronicles of Narnia books and comics publisher Millarworld.

A search is currently underway for a writer/showrunner to pen the Conan adaptation and director to helm the project. Malmberg and Wheeler will serve as executive producers on the potential series through their Pathfinder Media.

Based on four ghost stories from books of Lafcadio Hearn, Masaki Kobayashi’s first effort in the genre and in color film was a huge success, netting him the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Eureka presents the film in its uncut, 183-minute-version, in a rather impressive 2K digital restoration.

The first part, titled “The Black Hair” revolves around an impoverished samurai, who, tired of being poor, abandons his wife who loved him passionately, for a woman of higher statute and wealth. However, soon he comes across his new wife’s cruelty and begins missing his first wife’s love. Alas, when he finally manages to return, he is met with the worst fate of all.

This part has a highly didactic tone, about the benefits of loyalty and the blights of blind ambition. However,...

Masaki Kobayashi’s striking collection of Japanese ghost tales, on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, in a Limited Edition Set

Eureka Entertainment to release “Kwaidan,” Masaki Kobayashi’s ambitious anthology of Japanese ghost tales, on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, presented from a 2K digital restoration. Available from 27 April 2020 as part of The Masters of Cinema Series in a Limited Edition Set of only 3000 copies, featuring a Hardbound Case and 100-page Collector’s Book.

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, “Kwaidan” features four nightmarish tales adapted from Lafcadio Hearn’s classic Japanese ghost stories about mortals caught up in forces beyond their comprehension when the supernatural world intervenes in their lives: “The Black Hair”, “The Woman of the Snow”, “Hoichi the Earless”, and “In a Cup of Tea”.

Breathtakingly photographed entirely on hand-painted sets, the film is an abstract...

A love letter to the classic genre films of the ’70s and ’80s, writer-director Jacob Perrett‘s horror anthology Weird Tales comes to DVD and VOD May 12 from Wild Eye Releasing. Don’t miss out on stories that will chill your bones. A group of teens go searching for a missing body, a babysitter is stalked …

The post Official Trailer** True Terror Awaits in Weird Fiction appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Synopsis

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan features four nightmarish tales adapted from Lafcadio Hearn’s classic Japanese ghost stories about mortals caught up in forces beyond their comprehension when the supernatural world intervenes in their lives: “The Black Hair”, “The Woman of the Snow”, “Hoichi the Earless”, and “In a Cup of Tea”.

Breathtakingly photographed entirely on hand-painted sets, the film is an abstract wash of luminescent colours from another world. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the complete 183-minute original Japanese cut of Masaki Kobayashi’s masterpiece on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.

Special features

Limited Edition Hardbound Slipcase [3000 copies]

A 100-page Perfect Bound Illustrated Collector’s book featuring reprints of Lafcadio Hearn’s original ghost stories; a survey of the life and career of Masaki Kobayashi by Linda Hoaglund; and a wide ranging interview with the...

Baby Firefly, Otis Driftwood, and Captain Spaulding will be causing mayhem on Shudder just in time for Valentine's Day on Thursday, February 13th. Also in today's second Horror Highlights: details on Pixel Elixir's Weird Tales from Little China shirt and art print, as well as release details for Verotika and Atomic Apocalypse.

3 From Hell's Shudder Premiere Details: "Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced today that 3 from Hell, the blood-soaked new chapter in director Rob Zombie’s vicious “Rejects” trilogy, will premiere on the service Thursday, February 13. Shudder is the exclusive streaming home to the latest in Zombie’s popular film series which began with 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses and continued with The Devil’s Rejects in 2005.

A firestorm of murder, madness, and mayhem will be released in this terror ride to Hell and back. After barely surviving a furious shootout with the police,...

“Daimajin” by Kimiyoshi Yasuda stretches the genre borders and creates a well-aged drama about a big boy.

Being the first installment of a trilogy of which all movies have been shot at the same time, but were released a year apart, “Daimajin” resembles the trend of telling a Kaiju story in an Edo setting. The Japanese production company Diaei combines classic elements of the chanbara genre with the equally popular monster category.

Getting into the first 60 minutes of the plot, the movie goes into a totally different direction and does not feel like a monster movie at all. We are introduced to a political drama about a royal family that is torn apart by a coup. The heirs and their guardian have to flee to the mountains, where they hide for 10 years before they return to their home to free the people from a barbaric tyrant. That’s it for the sword fighting aspect.

Released in 2000 and celebrated by international-horror nerds via videotapes passed around like viruses, Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-on helped usher in a wave of modern Japanese creepfests that slowly made their way west. The title translated as something like “The Curse”; it would eventually be better known as The Grudge. Along with 1998’s The Ring, the film (and the numerous related series, sequels, quasi-remakes, and brand-name bastardizations) was the most recognizable ambassador for a genre folks dubbed J-Horror. By the time Sam Raimi and producer Roy Lee enlisted Shimizu and noted...

Tomorrow sees the release of Kwaidan, the sophomore release from electronic band Alone in the Woods. This is a group we’ve spoken about previously on Dread Central and we’re thrilled to help announce their new album, which we’ve heard and absolutely love. For those unaware, Alone in the Woods is the brainchild of Tiger Labs […]

The post Alone In The Woods New Album Kwaidan Comes Out Tomorrow appeared first on Dread Central.

[Editor’s Note: The following article contains spoilers from “The Terror: Infamy” Episode 2, “All the Demons Are Still in Hell.”]

Jordan Peele’s groundbreaking 2017 film “Get Out” uses horror tropes to highlight the real-life gruesomeness of racism in America. And although “The Terror: Infamy” wasn’t directly inspired by that film, showrunner Alexander Woo acknowledges that viewers might deem the projects similar.

“I think it’s not an unfair comparison. ‘Get Out’ is a terrific movie… I think it does make you feel — if you are not — like someone who is a black person surrounded by a bunch of white people,” said Woo. “For only two hours, you get a sense of the isolation and the alienation you might feel.”

AMC’s “The Terror: Infamy” is a period drama that tells the WWII story of Japanese American internment through the lens of Japanese horror, specifically, the Japanese ghost stories known as kaidan.

“We’re hopefully trying to accomplish something very similar: that you’re inside the shoes or inside the...

While “Hereditary” introduced Ari Aster as one seriously brilliant and twisted genre auteur, “Midsommar” had some fans concerned for his mental health. During a candid and often funny Reddit Ama (Ask Me Anything), the new reigning king of “elevated horror” (along with “Get Out” director Jordan Peele) hinted at some potential themes for his next projects, and his answer may come as a surprise to anyone familiar with his work. When asked whether Aster would ever consider making a comedy, the director replied with an enthusiastic: “Yes. And hopefully very soon.”

“Next one will either be a zonky nightmare comedy or a big, sickly domestic melodrama,” he added. “It might take me a few movies before I wind back around to [horror], but I love horror and I’m sure I’ll be back.”

Whether zonky comedy or sickly melodrama, Aster did promise to continue with at least one recurring theme:...

Jack Reynor, who recently starred in A24’s “Midsommar,” makes his directorial debut with the short film “Bainne.”

The film’s trailer, which debuted Thursday, shares a brief glimpse into Reynor’s vision, featuring black and white footage of actor Will Poulter in ominous conditions, set in the Irish countryside during the great famine.

“I’m really proud of it, you know. It was my first opportunity to really get on the camera and to design my own shot list, to think about the composition of a frame and everything that I could use within it to say something,” Reynor recently told Variety’s Marc Malkin on the “The Big Ticket” podcast.

“Right off the back of ‘Midsommar,’ I came home and then went into production,” the actor recalled, saying that the film was a “personal one” for him.

Reynor also wrote the film, which was inspired by his love of Japanese cinema,...

Dead of Night

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1945 / 1.33 : 1 / 102 Min.

Starring Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers

Cinematography by Douglas Slocombe

Directed by Basil Dearden, Alberto Cavalcant, Charles Chrichton, Robert Hamer

Anthology films have been a reliable Hollywood staple since D.W. Griffith’s time-traveling Intolerance and Paramount’s depression-era dramedy If I Had a Million. The short story format has proved especially popular with horror movie fans who prefer their thrills lean, mean and straight to the point.

That humble subgenre contains multitudes – from Masaki Kobayashi‘s elegant Kwaidan to the comic book stylings of Freddie Francis’s Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors to the state of the art shocker Nightmare Cinema – but the great-granddaddy of them all is surely the 1945 classic from Britain’s Ealing Studios – Dead of Night.

Mervyn Johns, the eternal Everyman, plays Walter Craig, a restoration expert whose newest project – a provincial manor called “Pilgrim’s...

Masaki Kobayashi’s 1965 anthology of spooky Japanese folk tales could be considered the Nipponese answer to Ealing’s Dead of Night. Shot in scope with a ravishing color scheme, the movie is more lyrical than frightening though the third segment, Hoichi the Earless, manages to be both nerve wracking and sardonically funny.

The post Kwaidan appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.) There’s a long holiday weekend coming up. You know what that means? If you answered “It’s time to go outside and spend time with friends and family!”, get the hell out of […]

The post Now Stream This: ‘Barton Fink’, ‘Halloween’, ‘The Perfection’, ‘Kwaidan’, ‘Three Days of the Condor’ and More appeared first on /Film.

BAMcinématek is hosting a 10-film series exploring Japanese art and folklore post World War II called Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror starting this Friday, October 26th through November 1st. Also in today's Highlights: Dermot Mulroney joins the cast of Trick and an interview with Ted Welch and Chris Blake from All Light Will End.

Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror Screening Details: "From Friday, October 26 through Thursday, November 1, BAMcinématek presents Ghosts and Monsters: Postwar Japanese Horror, a series of 10 films showcasing two strands of Japanese horror films that developed after World War II: kaiju monster movies and beautifully stylized ghost stories from Japanese folklore.

The series includes three classic kaiju films by director Ishirô Honda, beginning with the granddaddy of all nuclear warfare anxiety films, the original Godzilla (1954—Oct 26). The kaiju creature features continue with Mothra (1961—Oct 27), a psychedelic tale of a gigantic prehistoric and long dormant moth larvae...

Both a landmark and a source of much controversy, “Hiroshima” is one of those films where the background is as significant as the picture itself. Let us take things from the beginning, by quoting Joseph Anderson and Donald Richie’s “The Japanese Film”. “In 1953, the Japan Teachers Union decided to go in with Kaneto Shindo and make a film version of the bestselling “Children of the Atom Bomb” (Genbaku no Ko) by Arata Osada. Shindo made a faithful film version, using the name of the book, and showed the aftermath of the bomb without any vicious polemic. (…) The Union was not at all satisfied, saying that he had “made [the story] into a tear-jerker and destroyed its political orintation.” They decided to back another version which would this time “genuinely to help to fight to preserve peace.” They found their man in Hideo Sekigawa, who turned out “Hiroshima”. (…) The picture was financially...

A few months ago, the Crypt of Curiosities briefly touched on a subgenre of Japanese cinema called Kaidan. For the unaware, modern Kaidan are ghost stories, usually set in the Edo period and drawing on classic mythology and folklore. It was a very popular genre for ’50s and ’60s Japanese cinema to draw on, with standouts like Ugetsu (1953), Black Cat Mansion (1958), and Kwaidan (1964) helping define the movement as one of the great types of J-Horror. But when it comes to the ultimate in Kaidan, one director’s body of work stands out among the rest: the Kaidan of Kaneto Shindo.

Kaneto Shindo was a legend. Over the course of the hundred years he was with us, he worked as a screenwriter on everything from war films to disaster movies to Zatoichi entries, and served as the director for avant-garde classics like The Naked Island (1960). His filmography spans all sorts of genres and movements,...

Guillermo del Toro may be one of the world’s most beloved filmmakers, but he’s also one of its most avid cinephiles. The director has been making the press rounds nonstop this awards season in promotion of “The Shape of Water,” which is currently nominated for 13 Academy Awards, and he recently made a stop at the Criterion Collection to share 11 titles in the library that every fellow cinephile needs to see.

Included in del Toro’s picks are classics from the Coen brothers, Jean Cocteau, and Alfred Hitchcock. Anyone familiar with del Toro’s work shouldn’t be surprised that he recommends Cocteau’s 1946 “Beauty and the Beast” adaptation, which he has brought up several times when talking about inspirations behind “The Shape of Water.”

Visit the Criterion Collection website for del Toro’s full commentary, including video interviews on each title with “Mythbuster” host Adam Savage.

1. Jean Cocteau...

Michaël Dudok de Wit on Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli: "He's very much into symbolism, metaphors and the subtle emotions." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The French Institute Alliance Française in New York in their latest CinéSalon series is honouring actresses who have won the César Award. Catherine Deneuve in François Truffaut's 10-César award-winning The Last Metro (Le Dernier Métro - introduced by Anne-Katrin Titze on February 13 at 4:00pm); Sandrine Bonnaire in Agnès Varda's Vagabond (Sans Toit Ni Loi), and Isabelle Huppert (Oscar-nominated for her performance) in Paul Verhoeven's Elle are the upcoming Best Actress: A César-Winner Showdown films to be shown.

Michaël Dudok de Wit with Anne-Katrin Titze on Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: "It's basically fairy tales and ghost stories." Photo: Natascha Bodemann

Michaël Dudok de Wit's (César and Oscar-nominated and Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize winner) debut feature The Red Turtle,...

Michaël Dudok de Wit on Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli: "He's very much into symbolism, metaphors and the subtle emotions." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The French Institute Alliance Française in New York in their latest CinéSalon series is honouring actresses who have won the César Award. Catherine Deneuve in François Truffaut's 10-César award-winning The Last Metro (Le Dernier Métro - introduced by Anne-Katrin Titze on February 13 at 4:00pm); Sandrine Bonnaire in Agnès Varda's Vagabond (Sans Toit Ni Loi), and Isabelle Huppert (Oscar-nominated for her performance) in Paul Verhoeven's Elle are the upcoming Best Actress: A César-Winner Showdown films to be shown.

Michaël Dudok de Wit with Anne-Katrin Titze on Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: "It's basically fairy tales and ghost stories." Photo: Natascha Bodemann

Michaël Dudok de Wit's (César and Oscar-nominated and Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize winner) debut feature The Red Turtle,...

The Victorian era, which saw a surge in literary realism, also witnessed a growing fascination—maybe obsession—with spiritualism. Ghost stories and accounts of hauntings were hugely popular, especially around a Christmas fire. Several authors, including M.R. James, F. Marion Crawford, and Edith Wharton, contributed to its popularity. Most of these tales revolve around some anonymous narrator encountering the supernatural—good for nothing but a nice chill and moment of fear. Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu sets himself apart by summoning his spirits through psychology, even if his version of it is often backwards.

Like the anecdotal, often epistolary stories of M.R. James, many of Le Fanu’s tales read as true hauntings written in an analytical or reminiscent style from the perspective of a witness. “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street” or “An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House” are, as they sound, entertaining reports.

Featured in Heather Wixson's holiday gift guide, the new book Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television could be the perfect stocking stuffer for the horror fan in your life this holiday season, but Spectacular Optical is giving you the chance to take your gift one step further with their interactive book tour this December that includes screenings, lectures, and other live celebrations tied to the book's seasonal themes:

Press Release: For many, Christmas is an annual celebration of goodwill and joy, but for others, it’s a time to curl up on the couch in the dead of winter for a good old-fashioned fright. The festive holiday season has always included a more somber side, and scary tales of child-stealing demons to ghost stories told ‘round the fireplace go back to pre-Christian celebrations. These long-standing traditions have found modern expression in the Christmas horror film, a unique...

If you ask me, Hell is the ultimate horror setting. Sure, creepy castles and abandoned outposts are great and all, but a realm of eternal torment just strikes me as a tad more terrifying. And of the major cultural interpretations of Hell out there, none are quite as grisly as the hell of Japanese Buddhism: Jigoku. Sure, there’s a way out of it, but the torments inflicted upon the damned in Jigoku make the ones Dante wrote about seem fit for children’s birthday parties. Jigoku consists of sixteen separate hells (eight “hot” and eight “cold”), with eight great hells that consist of tortures ranging from being charred in massive frying pans to being eternally smashed into paste and revived by massive rocks. It’s a brutal, depressing place where hope is faint and mercy can wait billions of years away. Naturally, it makes for a great topic for a horror movie.

(Welcome to Not Dead Yet, a feature dedicated to what’s new on Blu-ray and what special features you should be excited about. Because yes, some of us still like to own physical copies of our movies.) Happy Halloween! Open your goodie bags and/or plastic pumpkin buckets and I’ll drop some fine physical media in there. In […]

The post The New Blu-ray Releases You Should Check Out This Week: Ghost Stories, Zombies, and David Lynch appeared first on /Film.

First staged in Liverpool in 2010, the hit theater show Ghost Stories has so far enjoyed two long London runs plus detours to Toronto, Moscow, Sydney and beyond. Its multi-plot format pays homage to the golden age of portmanteau British horror films, from eerie Ealing Studios classics like Dead of Night to the campy low-budget shockers made by Amicus and Hammer in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So there is a certain satisfying symmetry in seeing this affectionate celluloid facsimile finally reborn as a big-screen adaptation, which has just world-premiered at the London Film Festival.

Like its stage blueprint,...

Don’t worry if you haven’t gotten enough of Russia stories on cable news recently, as CNN’s “Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies” returns for its second season on Saturday. The timely season premiere, “The Spies Next Door: Operation Ghost Stories,” is about undercover Russian sleeper agents living in the U.S. and one of the largest counterintelligence investigations in the history of the FBI. “Declassified” host and executive producer Mike Rogers is a former congressman and ex-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — the position currently held by Devin Nunes. Needless to say, his former colleagues have been...

Written by George Mann | Art by Ivan Rodriguez | Published by Titan Comics

All good things must come to an end, and this issue is the final issue of the Ghost Stories mini-series. Probably not a book that many in particular were clamouring for, it has proven to be a fun ride. Combining a little tour of the Who universe with a smattering of super heroics, George Mann has rung as much fun out of this concept as is humanly possible. A more settled art team would have been the cherry on the top of this cake but never mind, there was enough to be happy with.

By now I am sure you all know the core story. The Doctor has been tracking down the three reality altering gems he needs to keep safe, the other gem being the one that gave The Ghost his powers. The Arquess and The Alcyone have been found and secured,...

Ghost stories require a suspension of disbelief, at least from those without serious superstitions. A Ghost Story requires something more. All but daring its audience to chortle, David Lowery’s supernatural mood piece unfolds almost entirely from the perspective of an apparition straight out of a grade-school fun house: a billowing white bed sheet with two holes cut into it for eyes. On some level, this was probably a budgetary workaround, and maybe a shrewd one; as the piss-poor CGI of Personal Shopper recently demonstrated, it takes some coin to conjure a convincing specter from 1s and 0s. But get on the wavelength of this mesmerizing, singularly unusual genre experiment and the undead being at its center stops looking so silly. There’s life in the dead darkness of those eyeholes: black reflective pools on a pale expanse of linen, conveying more feeling than you might expect.

Knowing there’s...

Written by George Mann | Art by Dennis Calero | Published by Titan Comics

Doctor Who: Ghost Stories snuck up on me a bit, ready as I was to dislike it even before I started it. It has done that rare thing which is to surpass the material that preceded and inspired it. George Mann has taken a fun concept and really energised it, and it has been a fun read. Grant Gordon, aka The Ghost, has been written fairly seriously, and plays off the mischievous Twelfth Doctor very nicely. The revolving artists is a little jarring, with Dennis Calero now becoming the third artist in three issues. I am assuming as each issue is a quest for a different gemstone, the differing art is supposed to reflect this. No complaints this time round though, as Calero is something of a favourite.

So The Doctor has enlisted Grant, and his partner Lucy and their daughter Jennifer,...

Written by George Mann | Art by Ian Rodriguez | Published by Titan Comics

Before I get stuck into the review in earnest, cards on the table time. I didn’t enjoy the Christmas special that inspired this 4 part mini-series. The Return of Dr Mysterio appeared on our screens Christmas 2016, and seems to have been very well liked by most. That should have included me, as it featured Dr Who of course, and something of an affectionate nod to comic books and superheroes, which have been a part of my life for 4 decades. I appreciated the intent, it just didn’t work for me. This mini-series was designed to build on from the events in that TV special, and I do have an interest in that, to see where Grant and Lucy have been since we last saw them.

For those that never saw the Christmas Special, the Twelfth Doctor was essentially...

Rob Leane Dec 7, 2017

Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and many more - here's our rundown of geeky tabletop board games...

Aren't tabletop board games great? Gathering a few of your chums around and battling it out of an evening is an endless source of fun. And, of course, adding a geeky bent to proceedings can only make that better.

See related Street Fighter 4 PlayStation 3 review

So, if you're fed up with your Monopolies and your Cluedos, here are some geeky tabletop board game options that our chums at Amazon are offering...

A Game of Thrones

King Robert Baratheon’s death has ignited a brutal battle for the Iron Throne. You and six pals will take control of the houses of Westeros in a calculated game of diplomacy and warfare. Can you coerce your way onto the throne? Or will terror and brutality triumph?

Buy now from Amazon

Game of Thrones...

Ghost stories have provided incredibly fertile territory throughout the history of cinema. The most obvious examples are the menacing ghouls from horror films, creaking and wailing their way through hordes of terrified B-Movie actors. Yet they can also be a vehicle for comedy, action and, as in David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, romance.

The film, which stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, has already wowed audiences at festivals, having billed itself as “singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence.” That’s a big claim to make, but A Ghost Story seems to live up to the hype, with the titular ghost silently haunting his former suburban home in an effort to reconnect with his former wife.

What you’ll have noticed from the new trailer is that this ghost isn’t some translucent marvel of computer compositing, but a dude in a white sheet with eye holes cut into it.

The Yakuza

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1975 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 112 & 123 min. / Street Date February 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring Robert Mitchum, Takakura Ken, Brian Keith, Eiji Okada, Richard Jordan, Keiko Kishi, James Shigeta, Herb Edelman.

Cinematography: Kozo Okazaki, Duke Callaghan

Production Design: Stephen Grimes

Art Direction: Yoshiyuki Ishida

Film Editor: Don Guidice, Thomas Stanford

Original Music: Dave Grusin

Written by: Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne

Produced by: Michael Hamilburg, Sydney Pollack, Koji Shundo

Directed by Sydney Pollack

The Warner Archive Collection is on a roll with a 2017 schedule that has so far released one much-desired library Blu-ray per week. Coming shortly are Vincente Minnelli’s Bells are Ringing, Billy Wilder’s Love in the Afternoon Ken Russell’s The Boy Friend and Val Guest’s When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and that only takes us through February. First up is a piercing action drama from 1975.

There are favorite movies around Savant central,...