A truly innovative and unique filmmaker, Teruo ‘King of Cult’ Ishii’s prolific career encompassed almost 100 features, shorts, and television episodes, ranging from the children’s sci-fi serial Super Giant (Japanese: Sūpā Jaiantsu; aka: Starman and Spaceman, 1957-1959) to mainstream hit Abashiri Prison (1965), which inspired no fewer than 17 sequels. But his enduring legacy is a series of pinku eiga thrillers and ero guro shockers, including Shogun’s Joys of Torture (Japanese

Generally overlooked outside of his home country, Nobuhiko Obayashi was among the most unique and unpredictable Japanese filmmakers. Including experimental shorts, his work spanned 75 years from 1944 to 2019. Known for combining avant-garde and commercial sensibilities and best remembered stateside for House (1977) – an anarchic horror comedy co-written with his then-teenage daughter, Chigumi, that achieved retrospective cult status, thanks to a Criterion Blu-ray – Obayashi’s

Before he was a cult film superstar, Takashi Miike was a working-class filmmaker toiling away in the coal mines of Japanese V-cinema (the region’s equivalent to direct-to-video). His career exploded in the wake of his now classic, anti-romantic horror movie Audition, which premiered in October of 1999, but caught on, thanks to a wider Japanese release and multiple festival showings in 2000. Soon, American and European audiences were looking into Miike’s already extensive film

The concept of body horror as a vehicle for exploring women’s mental health and other feminist philosophy was brought to mainstream attention in recent years, thanks to Coralie Fargeat’s surprise awards darling, The Substance (2024)...