Best Japanese Horror Movies

This page is updated regularly. Subscribe, so you don't miss new recommendations. The list of "Best Japanese Horror Movies" contains films with the following parameters. Style: suspenseful, scary, suspense, psychological, disturbing and slasher. Plot: murder, danger, supernatural, death, gore, ghost, fear, blood, monster and deadly. Genre: Horror, Thriller and Mystery. Country: Japan, USA and Canada.
Best Japanese Horror Movies
Best Japanese Horror Movies
TOP Movies: Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), Ring (1998), One Cut of the Dead (2017), Liverleaf (2018), Zigeunerweisen (1980), As the Gods Will (2014), The Werewolf Game: Crazy Fox (2015), Godzilla Minus One (2023), Werewolf Game: Lovers (2018), Silent Hill (2006), Nope (2022), Miss Zombie (2013), Premonition (2004), Bride of Re-Animator (1990), The Visit (2015), Dracula Untold (2014), Scared Shrekless (2010), Graveyard Shift (1990), Get Out (2017), Resident Evil (2002).

List of Best Movies

Watch Trailers From This List to Choose a Movie
Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 92 min.
Story: A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.
Style: scary, psychological, disturbing, creepy, cult classic ...
Audience: adult
Plot: ghost, supernatural, haunted house, afterlife, social worker, panic, haunted by the past, family problems, woman in danger, investigation, haunted, curses spells and rituals ...
Time: year 2002, year 2000, 21st century
Place: japan, asia
Is relevant ?
 7.2
 77K
Ring (1998)
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: Japan
Duration: 96 min.
Story: A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.
Style: suspenseful, atmospheric, disturbing, splatter, creepy ...
Audience: teens, adult
Plot: ghost, supernatural, investigation, macabre, curse, supernatural horror, urban legend, journalist, woman in danger, telephone call, danger, haunting ...
Time: 90s, year 1998, 20th century, 1950s
Place: japan, asia, tokyo
Is relevant ?
One Cut of the Dead (2017)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 96 min.
Story: After an epic 40-minute one-take zombie-movie we get to watch behind-the-scenes of how it came to be: a comedy of errors with overly dedicated actresses, clumsy crew, arrogant directors and a lots of trials and tribulations.
Style: horror comedy, mockumentary, humorous, absurd, captivating ...
Plot: zombie, found footage, filmmaking, film set, blood, zombie attack, director, producer, walking dead, dark humor, virus, undead ...
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
 6.2
 1K
Liverleaf (2018)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 114 min.
Story: The story follows Nozaki Haruka, a middle school student who transfers to a new school in a small town because of her father's work. Unfortunately, she becomes a victim of horrific bullying, but since the school will be closing in 2 months ...
Style: captivating, mindfuck, dark fantasy, disturbing, psychological ...
Plot: revenge, murder, bullying, psycho, school, violence, brutality, arson, japanese schoolgirl, teenage girl, vengeance, danger ...
Time: 21st century
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
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Zigeunerweisen (1980)
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: Japan
Duration: 144 min.
Story: A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
Style: surreal, psychedelic, erotic, enigmatic, erotic drama ...
Plot: arthouse horror, nightmare, adultery, lookalikes, wanderer, aging, dying and death, geisha, musician, friendship between men, professor, marriage ...
Time: 20th century, 1920s, 1910s
Place: japan, asia
Is relevant ?
As the Gods Will (2014)
Genre: Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 117 min.
Story: Takahata Shun's day at high school begins just as boring as ever, but it doesn't end that way. He and his classmates find themselves forced to play children's games with deadly stakes. With no idea who is behind, the only thing Shun ...
Style: surreal, slasher, suspenseful, suspense, psychological ...
Audience: teens, boys' night
Plot: game of death, game, school, death, heroes, high school student, isolation, nightmare, superhero, chaos, fight scenes, murder ...
Time: year 2014
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
The Werewolf Game: Crazy Fox (2015)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 97 min.
Story: Ayaka Morii and others students have no choice but to play the Jinro Game. Their lives are at stake in the game. Ayaka picks up the fox card. She can't trust anyone, but she develops feelings for Yosuke Takigawa.
Style: suspense, suspenseful, disturbing, psychotronic, bleak ...
Plot: werewolf, game of death, contests and competitions, supernatural power, curses spells and rituals, manhunt, survival, young heroes, youth, death, competition, peril ...
Time: 21st century
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Country: Japan
Duration: 124 min.
Story: In postwar Japan, a new terror rises. Will the devastated people be able to survive... let alone fight back?
Style: crying, ambiguous ending
Plot: godzilla, kaiju, monster, giant monster, post war japan, post war, kamikaze, naval battle, duty, heroes, male female relationship, bomb ...
Time: 1940s, year 1945, year 1947, 20th century, post world war two ...
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
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Werewolf Game: Lovers (2018)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 108 min.
Story: Contestants in "The Werewolf Game" have to kill each other to win. These contestants have experience in similar slaughter games. Ranko Takano is one of the participants. She takes part to help a family mired in dept. New positions of ...
Style: dread, serious, disturbing, bleak, captivating ...
Plot: survival, kidnapping, game, kidnapped boy, game of death, high school student, kidnapped, kidnapped girl, abduction, struggle for survival, survival game
Is relevant ?
 6.5
 243K
Silent Hill (2006)
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: Canada, France
Duration: 125 min.
Story: The eerie and deserted ghost town of Silent Hill draws a young mother desperate to find a cure for her only child's illness. Unable to accept the doctor's diagnosis that her daughter should be permanently institutionalized for psychiatric ...
Style: scary, dark, surreal, gothic, suspenseful ...
Audience: teens, adult
Plot: supernatural, monster, demon, survival, supernatural horror, macabre, insanity, torture, ghost town, ghost, good versus evil, missing child ...
Time: year 2006, year 2000, 2000s, 21st century
Place: west virginia, virginia, america, usa
Is relevant ?
Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train (2020)
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Thriller
Country: Japan
Duration: 117 min.
Story: Tanjirō Kamado, joined with Inosuke Hashibira, a boy raised by boars who wears a boar's head, and Zenitsu Agatsuma, a scared boy who reveals his true power when he sleeps, board the Infinity Train on a new mission with the Fire Hashira, ...
Style: anime, manga, exciting, suspenseful, captivating ...
Audience: teens
Plot: master warrior, demon, magic, supernatural, fight, mutilation, superhuman powers, danger, violence, battles, uninhibited rivalry, manipulation ...
Time: 2010s, 20th century, 1910s
Place: japan, asia
Is relevant ?
 6.8
 261K
Nope (2022)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: Canada, Japan, USA
Duration: 130 min.
Story: Plot unknown.
Style: psychological thriller, suspense, disturbing, scary, splatter ...
Audience: teens, adult
Plot: alien, massacre, horse, chimpanzee, ufo, alien invasion, brother sister relationship, death of father, eaten alive, loss of father, alien monster, ranch ...
Time: 2020s, future, year 1998, 90s, year 1996
Place: california
Is relevant ?
 6.3
 726
Miss Zombie (2013)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 85 min.
Story: A doctor and his family receive an unexpected delivery from an old friend at their remote country home - a large wooden crate containing a gun, a female zombie and an instruction sheet telling them not to feed her meat. The family is concerned, of ...
Style: scary, dark, suspenseful, unusual plot structure, disturbing ...
Plot: zombie, supernatural horror, female monster, employer employee relationship, mother son estrangement, tragedy, domestic servant, undead, mother child relationship, body horror, living dead, jealousy ...
Place: japan, mount fuji
Is relevant ?
 6.2
 5K
Premonition (2004)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 95 min.
Story: While stopped at a roadside phone booth for transmitting his work through Internet to the university, Professor Hideki Satomi finds a scrap of newspaper with the picture of his five year old daughter Nana in the obituary. He sees his wife Ayaka ...
Style: psychological, suspenseful, atmospheric, bleak, slasher ...
Plot: supernatural ability, supernatural, prediction, newspaper, haunted by the past, danger, life is a bitch, destiny, family problems, journalism, unsupportive spouse, estrangement ...
Time: future
Place: japan, asia
Is relevant ?
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 96 min.
Story: Herbert West once again revives the dead. This time, he brings Dan's ex-girlfriend's heart back inside a 'perfect' body. Dr. Hill returns as the evil nemesis who lost his head.
Style: lovecraft, black comedy, splatter, horror comedy, independent film ...
Audience: teens, boys' night
Plot: mad scientist, zombie, gory, laboratory, stop motion, reanimation, hospital, reanimated corpse, monster, undead, body horror, virus ...
Time: 90s, 80s
Place: massachusetts, south america, usa, peru
Is relevant ?
 6.3
 150K
The Visit (2015)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 94 min.
Story: The terrifying story of a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents' remote Pennsylvania farm for a weeklong trip. Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances ...
Style: suspense, twist ending, surprise ending, suspenseful, mockumentary ...
Audience: teens
Plot: murder, elderly, danger, kids in trouble, siblings relations, found footage, sibling relationship, farm, grandmother granddaughter relationship, family relations, parents and children, basement ...
Time: year 2015, 2010s, 21st century
Place: philadelphia, usa, pennsylvania
Is relevant ?
 6.2
 207K
Dracula Untold (2014)
Genre: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 92 min.
Story: Vlad Tepes is a great hero, but when he learns the Sultan is preparing for battle and needs to form an army of 1,000 boys, including Vlad's son, he vows to find a way to protect his family. Vlad turns to dark forces in order to get the power to ...
Style: gothic, dark fantasy, scary, exciting, suspenseful ...
Audience: girls' night, teens, boys' night
Plot: vampire, supernatural, dracula, medieval, legends and myths, immortality, monster, mythology, immortal, vampirism, transformation, demon ...
Time: year 2014, 2010s, medieval times, 15th century, year 2000 ...
Place: transylvania, romania, london, ottoman empire
Is relevant ?
Scared Shrekless (2010)
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Horror
Country: USA
Duration: 26 min.
Story: Shrek challenges Donkey, Puss in Boots and his other fairy tale character friends to spend the night in Lord Farquaad's haunted castle, telling scary stories to see who can resist becoming scared and stay the longest.
Style: computer animated, humorous, witty, not serious, feel good ...
Audience: kids, family outing, preschool
Plot: halloween, ghost, friendship, ambition, shrek, odd couple, imaginary, contests and competitions, friends, verbal byplay, reluctant partners, cat ...
Time: 2010s
Is relevant ?
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Graveyard Shift (1990)
Genre: Horror
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 86 min.
Story: John Hall is a drifter who wanders into a small town in Maine. He needs a job and decides to seek employment at the community's top business: a large textile mill. He is hired to work the "graveyard shift" -- from around midnight to ...
Style: scary, atmospheric, slasher, disturbing, suspense ...
Audience: boys' night
Plot: rat, supernatural, creature, gory, twists and turns, uncover truth, survival, deadly creature, dangerous animal, rescue, escapades, boss and employee ...
Time: 80s, 90s
Place: maine, usa, new england
Is relevant ?
 7.8
 688K
Get Out (2017)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 104 min.
Story: Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend ...
Style: suspense, twist ending, psychological thriller, psychological, suspenseful ...
Audience: teens, adult
Plot: racism, hypnosis, kidnapping, brainwashing, interracial romance, survival, paranoia, missing person, african american, female villain, revenge, african american protagonist ...
Time: 2010s, year 2017, future, 21st century
Place: indiana, brooklyn new york city, new york
Is relevant ?
 6.6
 287K
Resident Evil (2002)
Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Country: UK, Germany
Duration: 100 min.
Story: When a virus leaks from a top-secret facility, turning all resident researchers into ravenous zombies and their lab animals into mutated hounds from hell, the government sends in an elite military task force to contain the outbreak. Alice and Rain ...
Style: scary, suspense, atmospheric, splatter, bloody ...
Audience: teens, manly, boys' night, adult
Plot: zombie, infected, virus, zombie apocalypse, artificial intelligence, monster, survival, bio weapon, woman with a gun, gory, experiment gone awry, apocalypse ...
Time: future, 2000s, year 2002, near future, 21st century
Is relevant ?
 5.8
 111K
The Wolfman (2010)
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
Country: USA, Japan
Duration: 103 min.
Story: Lawrence Talbot, an American man on a visit to Victorian London to make amends with his estranged father, gets bitten by a werewolf and, after a moonlight transformation, leaves him with a savage hunger for flesh.
Style: gothic, suspense, dark, period piece, gothic horror ...
Audience: boys' night, adult
Plot: werewolf, deadly creature, supernatural, transformation, beast, gory, blood, monster, mythology, alternate reality, death, macabre ...
Time: victorian era, 19th century, 2010s, year 2000, year 2010 ...
Place: europe, london, tower bridge london, england
Is relevant ?
 6.0
 629
The Inerasable (2015)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 107 min.
Story: I (Yuko Takeuchi) is a mystery novel writer. I receive a letter from Kubo (Ai Hashimoto), a reader of her novel and a university student. Her letter states that she hears odd sounds from the room where she lives now. I becomes interested by the ...
Style: psychotronic, suspense, bleak, disturbing, scary ...
Plot: investigation, letter, novelist, university student, japanese woman, murder investigation, who done it, violence, heroes, testimony, vengeance, uncover truth ...
Time: 21st century
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
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 5.6
 59K
Ma (2019)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Country: Japan, USA
Duration: 99 min.
Story: Sue Ann is a loner who keeps to herself in her quiet Ohio town. One day, she is asked by Maggie, a new teenager in town, to buy some booze for her and her friends, and Sue Ann sees the chance to make some unsuspecting, if younger, friends of her ...
Style: suspense, slasher, disturbing, psychological thriller, suspenseful ...
Audience: teens, adult
Plot: underage drinking, basement, revenge, mental health, psychopath, teenager, torture, twists and turns, teenage girl, female psychopath, teen drinking, social network ...
Time: 2010s, 80s, 21st century
Place: usa
Is relevant ?
Ju-on: The Beginning of the End (2014)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 91 min.
Story: An elementary school teacher named Yui visits the home of a boy named Toshio Saeki who's been absent from school for a long period of time. When she arrives, she re-lives the horrifying events that occurred in the Saeki household 10 years ...
Style: psychological, suspenseful, tense, captivating, scary ...
Plot: haunted house, curse, evil spirit, paranormal investigation, demonic possession, ghost, dark past, danger, paranormal activity, exorcism, supernatural, fear ...
Time: 21st century
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
 5.7
 621
Fatal Frame (2014)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 104 min.
Story: High school student Aya Tsukimori becomes cursed and is unable to leave her school dormitory. Meanwhile, many students begin reporting ghost sightings at the school, while others go missing and are later discovered to have drowned mysteriously. ...
Style: disturbing, psychotronic, bleak, suspense, suspenseful ...
Plot: ghost, high school life, lesbian, supernatural, supernatural power, exorcism, death, escapades, loss, paranormal, mission, hunting ...
Place: japan
Is relevant ?
One Missed Call 3: Final (2006)
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: Japan, South Korea
Duration: 109 min.
Story: Emiri, a timid high school girl, is bullied mercilessly by her classmates, but when her friend, Asuka, stands up for her, Asuka becomes the target of the bullying instead. Emiri, not wanting to be bullied again, avoids Asuka. Worn down, Asuka ...
Style: psychological, serious, suspenseful, tense, suspense ...
Audience: teens
Plot: ghost, curses spells and rituals, supernatural, woman in danger, teenage life, danger, high school, supernatural ability, bullying, supernatural horror, mobile phone, fright ...
Time: 21st century
Place: japan, busan, asia
Is relevant ?
Tetsuo, the Iron Man (1989)
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
Country: Japan
Duration: 67 min.
Story: Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a 1989 Japanese cyberpunk film by cult-film director Shinya Tsukamoto produced by Japan Home Video. This, his third film, is an extremely graphic but also strikingly-filmed fantasy shot in the same low-budget, ...
Style: psychedelic, psychotronic, surreal, experimental, disturbing ...
Audience: boys' night
Plot: cyberpunk, surrealism, body horror, very little dialogue, metamorphosis, sex, hit and run, businessman, mutilation, apocalypse, transformation, distopia ...
Time: 80s, year 1989
Place: japan, asia, tokyo
Is relevant ?
Ichi the Killer (2001)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Japan
Duration: 129 min.
Story: As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.
Style: disturbing, controversial, dark comedy, bloody, splatter ...
Audience: boys' night
Plot: gory, violence, psychopath, organized crime, gangster, yakuza, massacre, mob boss, danger, rage, insanity, sadism ...
Time: year 2001, 2000s, 21st century
Place: japan, east asia, asia
Is relevant ?
 6.5
 1K
Sweet Home (1989)
Genre: Horror
Country: Japan
Duration: 100 min.
Story: A TV production crew are making a documentary about the infamous painter Mamiya Ichiro. When they start filming at his old home, they come under attack from the ghost of the painter's wife.
Style: cult classic, serious, atmospheric, suspenseful, scary ...
Plot: haunted house, ghost, supernatural, haunted, body horror, resident evil, sorcery, supernatural horror, occult, murder, painter, mansion ...
Time: 80s, 20th century
Place: asia, japan
Is relevant ?
Watch Trailers From This List to Choose a Movie
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