♣ Top 10 Asian Horror movies ♣

"Suicide Club" begins with a mass suicide of high school students who all hold hands on a subway station platform as they plunge to their deaths in front of an approaching train. Detective Kuroda (Ryo Ishibashi) is the detective put in charge of this mysterious occurrence. Because it was an obvious suicide, and not a murder, it is hard for Kuroda to get much help on his mission to solve these suicides. The only clue left at the first scene is a makeshift quilt constructed of pieces of human skin inside of a bowling ball bag. Kuroda traces the bowling ball bag to a Tokyo bowling alley that is inhabited by a Goth subculture. This is his first lead. There is the music playing by a very popular girl band that might be sending out subliminal suicidal messages to teens. Kuroda does get some phone calls and e-mails that might hold some clues. He brings in a hacker to infiltrate a suspicious website that seems to prophesier the number of suicides per day before they actually happen.

Eighteen year old Wong Kar Gun (Lee Sin-Je) has been blind since the age of two, but a cornea transplant finally offers her the chance to see again. As she adjusts to sighted life, unsure of what she is seeing, she begins to suspect that her new eyes have left her with the ability to #see the dead. Overwhelmed by the new colors and lights constantly surrounding her, and terrified that not everything she sees is of the natural world, she enlists the help of Dr. Wuh (#Lawrence Chou) to help her uncover the identity of her donor and hopefully the reason behind her visions.

Also called Pulse, this story is all about #loneliness, #isolation, and #alienation, and how consumerism and technology can make these things worse, especially for younger #Japanese people. There is also a communication breakdown among those of differing generations. Michi (Kumiko Aso), Harue (Koyuki) and Kawashimi (Haruhiko Kato) are some of the characters. One tries to leave his apartment to go out at night but tries to use his personal computer to connect with other people who are just as lonely and lost as he is. Some of them are alive and others are dead. There are many bleak, moody, and confusing images that make the story seem like a nightmare or else something post-apocalyptic.

"Honogurai mizu no soko kara" is the haunting tale of a young mother, Matsubara Yoshimi (#Hitomi Kuroki) who has moved into a new apartment with her young daughter Ikuko (#Rio Kanno), during a messy divorce. Something doesn't sit right in the apartment though, as much of the place is inhabited and there is water permeating the walls. The janitor claims there is nothing he can do for them, but the stain keeps growing and water is dripping onto the floor. Although the mother finds and throws away a little red bag, it continues to reappear. With visions of a little girl dressed in yellow and the discovery of a murder that took place upstairs, the family starts to break down. Will they escape the dark forces that have been awakened?

Audition tells a story of a middle-aged, widowed TV company executive Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi). It's been seven long years after the death of his beloved wife Ryoko, leaving the widower with only a few people in his world. One of them is Rie (Toshie Negishi), the housekeeper. The other is his son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki). Aoyama, now a bachelor with a terminal illness, finally makes a decision to shake off the ghost of his deceased wife and move on with his life. Shigeharu asks his only friend, and business partner, Yoshikawa (Jun Kunimura) for help and he comes up with a brilliant plan - a fake audition for a non-existing movie, designed to lure pretty young actresses onto the casting couch. Shigeharu, however, is looking for something different - love in a heartless, cruel society, where he has no other choice. And he finds it, hopelessly falling in love with a former ballerina named Asami (Eihi Shiina), simply after reading her resume. She wins the starring role of a lifetime. The movie holds Miike's trademark of being both fascinating and disgusting. After a deceptively melodramatic first hour, it develops into a horrific endurance test of viewer's nerves and a bloody massacre

When journalist Reiko Asakawa (#Nanako Matsushima) is tasked with investigating a cursed videotape that is said to kill whoever watches it after seven days, she is skeptical. However, when a family member and her friends die in mysterious circumstances a week after taking a holiday together, she can't resist the urge to watch the last video they watched together. This begins her own frantic seven day race to discover the video's hidden meaning, as she struggles to keep her friends and colleagues safe from the curse of the tape

Imagine your cell phone ringing and you answer it only to hear your voice, screaming. Adding to your shock is the timestamp on your phone is three days in the future. This is what happens to Yoko (Anna Nagata). Her best friend Yumi (Kou Shibasaki) thinks nothing of it and the girls blow it off as a sick prank. However, three days later, at the precise time that the call was dated, Yoko is killed. Not sure what to do as more and more friends begin receiving the mysterious calls, Yumi turns to friend Hiroshi (Shin’ichi Tsutsumi) who has also suffered the loss of a sister. The two vow to find out the origins of the bizarre calls before anyone else loses their life.

Rika Nishina (#Megumi Okina) is a social worker assigned to visit troubled family's around town. She arrives to a newly assigned family's home to find a peaceful seeming everyday Japanese home. But soon it becomes very clear something truly terrible has happened there. Something so terrible the very horror of it has become one with a home; a Grudge so powerful it curses and drags anyone within the house to their doom. Now she finds herself chased and tormented by two very different ghosts whose vengeance seems inescapable. Every person to visit the home has been cursed and has died in short order. Her only chance to escape the same fate is to unravel the mystery.

A family is troubled by disturbing events that leave everyone wondering what is real and what is an illusion. Two sisters, Su-mi (#Im Soo Jung) and Su-yeon (#Moon Geun Young), struggle to deal with their step-mother Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-ah) after their real mother’s recent death while their father Moo-hyeon (#Kim Kap-su) is distant and in mourning. They resent her, and begin to believe that she is malicious. Scratches appear on Su-yeon’s arms, and Eun-joo’s behavior becomes more erratic and dangerous every day. Su-mi tries to defend her sister and her father, but Eun-joo always gets the better of her. When Eun-joo locks Su-yeon in a wardrobe, Su-mi decides she’s had enough. What she learns next turns everything she thought she knew about her family upside-down

Tun is a photographer, and a recent college graduate. He spends a night drinking at a party with his closest friends, and his girlfriend Jane picks him up to drive him home. Something or someone on the road causes Jane to swerve, causing her to hit a young girl. Jane wants to turn back, but Tun won’t let her. Without stopping to see if the girl is alive, they flee the scene. After that, nothing is the same. Both Tun and Jane have terribly nightmares. Strange shadowy images appear on Tun’s photographs. Some of Tun’s close friends begin die under mysterious and suspicious circumstances, each time being ruled as a suicide. Jane and Tun realize that they are being haunted by the ghost of the girl he hit, a girl Tun once knew. Their victim was Natre, Tun’s former girlfriend. As Jane delves deeper into the mystery, she begins to learn the sordid truth about Natre, Tun, and his friends.