Japanese Horror Top 5

[Don Brown]

>With the recent discussion about best 10 samurai movies, I started
>thinking... I'd be hard-pressed to come up with 10 Japanese scary 
>movies I
>really enjoy.  Anyone willing to stick their neck out and suggest a
>horror/thriller top 10?

Well, seeing that in New Zealand, access to Japanese film stretches only 
about as far as Akira Kurosawa, I never had the chance to rent "Toire no 
Hanako-chan" from the video store back home, but I've been trying my best 
to catch up since I came to Japan.  A top 10 is out of the question, but 
using a fairly wide criteria, here's at least a top five of Japanese horror 
films I thoroughly enjoyed (and some which, even as a hardened horror movie 
watcher, managed to give me the willies):

Cure 
Charisma 
Audition 
Angel Dust
Ring 0: Birthday 

Regarding Ring 0, which Tony Rayns recently panned, I found it to be a 
somewhat original and off-kilter addition to the series, easily topping the 
first two.  I get the feeling I'm alone on this one though.  After being 
decidely unimpressed by the first two I was pleasantly surprised by the 
direction that this one took, transforming the central demon Sadako into a 
tragic and sympathetic figure, in contrast to her relentless Jason-like 
boogeyman (boogey-person?) of Ring 1 and 2.  Perhaps it had something to do 
with the fact that it did away with the whole confusing 
phonecall-death-sentence and video-curse gimmick (how did a psychic trapped 
down a well for thirty years manage to commission a video of her own 
murder?  Kind of a Candid Cadaver type deal?).  What I was most impressed 
by was the manner in which it managed to successfully expand Sadako's 
previously one-dimensional character, turning her through 180 degrees and 
back again, yet still maintaining the link with the previous movies in the 
series.  I can't think of a horror series that has managed to pull off this 
feat, let alone attempt it in the first place.  Unless you count Godzilla.
Don Brown
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