For your movie night, we’ve put together a list of the top Japanese horror movies on Netflix! Japanese films are renowned for having great plotlines and preserving a fusion of current society with Japanese customs and mythology.
Japanese movies are a fantastic option for Netflix and chill and a tremendous way to learn the language.
However, watching horror amusement movies has always brought fearful nights and colds, and Japanese cinema is among the best, bringing some fair-erry tales to the big screen.
The horror genre has undergone a significant shift thanks solely to the Japanese cinema industry, which has also given us films that no one could have ever dreamed of.
So, allow me to share with you some of the top Japanese horror films available on Netflix.
1. Lesson of The Evil (2012)
First on our list of Japanese horror movies on Netflix is Lesson of the Evil. Lesson Of the Evil, a Japanese horror movie that debuted on November 10, 2012, is based on Takashi Miike’s 2010 book.
The movie tells the tale of a young, popular, attractive teacher who hides his violent background and homicidal tendencies behind a façade of gentility.
Furthermore, English teacher Seji Hasumi graduated from Harvard University with an MBA. He entered a college to seek a career in high school teaching after spending two years working in an investment bank.
Although he is a gentleman with extensive knowledge, he has malicious intentions. Hasumi suffers from severe antisocial disorder and is a psychopath with no empathy for anyone.
In his violent past, he murdered his parents and his previous instructor when he was fourteen. When did the world discover this horrible teacher’s true nature, and what happened next in his tale?
- Directed By: Takashi Miike
- Run Time: 128 minutes
- Stream On: Amazon Prime Video, Netflix
2. Reincarnation(2005)
Japanese horror movie Reincarnation was presented at the Tokyo Film Festival in October 2005. The film’s central character is a young actress who accepts a role in a movie about the 35-year-old hotel massacre.
She begins to glimpse the vision of the massacre as she assumes her role. Thus, Professor Norihasa Omori, a psycho, is where the story begins.
He goes to a hotel to comprehend and research reincarnation, and before committing himself, he murders eleven hotel visitors, staff members, and his children.
After 35 years, a horror film director decides to reenact the atrocity, casting Nagisa Sugiura as Christo, Omor’s daughter.
She is now haunted by the ghosts of the massacre victims when she accepts the role in the film. She soon began experiencing hallucinations and dreams about the deaths in the hotel atrocity.
What occurs in her story after that, and how does she manage to get away from her life-threatening hallucinations? The movie Reincarnation contains all the solutions.
- Directed By: Takashi Shimizu
- Run Time: 95 minutes
- Stream On: Amazon Prime, Mubi
3. Ring (1998)
Next on our list of Japanese horror movies on Netflix is Ring. The Ring is a popular Japanese horror movie that started a trend of western remakes of the same film. It is based on a 1991 novel by Kojo Suzuki.
The movie, released on January 31, 1998, is about a cursed VHS that kills viewers after seven days of watching it.
The two esteemed professors, Masami and Tomoko, learn about an allegedly cursed videotape that kills anybody who watches it, and here is where the entire narrative begins.
As a result, Tomoko watches the video with her partner in excitement and soon notices some odd things occurring to her.
Tomoko and her lover were killed by an unforeseen force seven days later, and an investigation was launched following the passing of Tomoko, her maternal aunt.
She soon discovers some incredibly odd and unbelievable details about the videotape. Was she able to unravel the riddle of the cassette in the subsequent scenes of the film? The film Ring contains all the solutions.
- Directed By: Hideo Nakata
- Run Time: 95 minutes
- Stream On: HBO max, Vudu, Amazon prime video
4. As The Gods Will (2014)
As The Gods Will, a Japanese supernatural horror film that debuted on November 15, 2014, is the movie for Squid Game Lovers.
They need to keep winning each game’s task to survive. High school student Shun Takahata spends most of the day playing violent video games.
However, he complains that he is the most uninteresting person and has never done anything daring in his life at school one day, preferring to play video games.
Soon, he was made to participate in a game of death in which survival depended on completing every challenge. The players had to prevail in a total of five games if they weren’t going to die in the movie.
What kind of games were there, and who was the game’s creator? The film As the Gods Will contains all the solutions. Following the Squid Games series, you can view this other film.
- Directed By: Takashi Miike
- Run Time: 117 minutes
- Stream On: Vudu, Netflix
5. One Cut Dead (2017)
One Cut Dead is one of the Japanese horror movies on Netflix. With a $25,000 budget, the Japanese comic horror zombie movie One Cut Dead earned $31.2 million worldwide.
The film premiers in November 2017 and centers on the mistakes made by a crew of filmmakers when they were expected to shoot a zombie movie in only one take for live television.
Due to his rising debts, he is desperate for the movie to be a hit. To make the movie seem more genuine, he chooses to film it in a WWII Japanese facility.
Higurashi set up a blood pentagon and painted it there to trigger actual zombies because the film performers could not give a convincing portrayal of zombies.
The cameraman turns into a zombie when he summons the actual zombies and bites the assistant director to convert him into one.
Watching how the director avoided harm while filming the movie with zombies is interesting. Learn about his exploits in the film One Cut Dead. The movie contains some genuine plot twists and turns that will make you laugh until you cry.
- Directed By: Shin’ichirō Ueda
- Run Time: 97 minutes
- Stream On: Vudu, Netflix, Amazon prime video
6. Cure (1997)
You would fall in love with this movie if you enjoyed the 1995 movie Seven. The Cure is a 1977 Japanese mystery-horror film that has been hailed as one of the best movies of all time and is gaining popularity across the globe.
The movie tells the tale of a detective tasked with looking into a series of horrific killings in which the murderer marks the victim’s body with an X.
Thus, terrible killings in the town set the stage for the entire narrative, and Kenichi Takabe is tasked with solving the case.
He discovers that while each murderer is distinct, they all kill similarly. They all leave a similar X mark on the victim’s neck.
Additionally, when he apprehends the offender at the crime scene, they confess to their crime, but with further investigation, it becomes apparent that their motivation for the killing is unclear.
They later discover a man who served as a connecting factor for all of these crimes with the aid of a psychologist named Sakama.
Everybody who encounters him performs these cunning killings. They learn that he is an expert hypnotist who can instill criminal ideas into the minds of total strangers.
Now, let’s talk about his motivation for doing so and the outcome. In the film Cure, all of this enigma will be cleared up.
- Directed By: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
- Run Time: 111 minutes
- Stream On: The Criterion Channel, Netflix
7. Kuroneko (1968)
Last on our list of Japanese horror movies on Netflix is Kuroneko. Kuroneko is a Japanese horror movie based on supernatural legend shot in black and white and TohoScope format.
The film, released on February 24, 1968, tells the tale of the mother and her daughter-in-vengeful law’s spirits after a band of samurai slaughtered them.
A group of samurai attacked Yora and her daughter-in-law Shinge while living in a bamboo forest. The samurai troops broke into their home one day while they were by themselves, raped them, set their house on fire, and slaughtered them both.
Later, these women appear ghostly to exact retribution on all samurai. The task of battling the ghosts and slaying the samurai is handed to a man named Hachi. He learned that the spirits working on the project were his mother and wife.
What occurs later in the film, and what does Hachi do then? The movie Kuroneko will provide all of the solutions.
- Directed By: Kaneto Shindo
- Run Time: 99 minutes
- Stream On: Criterion Channel, Netflix
Go ahead and start streaming if you have located your favorite movie on the list.
