At least until films like Saw upended things starting in 2004, nothing defined the horror genre at the start of the new millennium as profoundly as Japanese cinema. Referred to by many fans and critics as "J-horror," the wave turned out numerous bona fide classics like Ring, Audition, Pulse, Ju-on: The Grudge, Cure, and Dark Water. In turn, these films inspired numerous American remakes and imitations as well as similar efforts out of South Korea and Hong Kong, resulting in a heavy glut of titles that slowed things down considerably by 2010 or so. As a consequence, several worthwhile Japanese titles got widespread home video releases but tended to get lost in the shuffle, rarely spoken about today but worth seeking out for their own unique contributions to the cycle. Seven of these were gathered by Arrow Video in a 2024 Blu-ray set, J-Horror Rising, reviving titles that had been lurking in the dark since their initial DVD releases. The set also comes with an illustrated booklet featuring new writing by Eugene Thacker, Jasper Sharp, Anton Bitel, Amber T., Mark Player, Jim Harper and Sarah Appleton, plus a double-sided foldout poster with new art by John Conlon.

First up on disc one is Shikoku, an early post-Ring entry and the one title here that fits into the horror category the least. More of a dark supernatural fantasy, it follows the odyssey of Hinako (Natsuawa) who returns home to the town of the title where she was once best friends with two other children. She's shocked to learn that one of them, Sayori, drowned quite a while ago under mysterious circumstances that have apparently taken a major mental toll on her occult-fixated mother, Teruko (Negishi). Hinako teams up with her other reunited friend, Fumiya (Tsutui), to unravel what's going on as mysterious clues indicate Sayori might still be involved in their lives. Unlike the malicious long-haired female wraiths common to many films of this kind, Shikoku goes in a somewhat different direction with a more complicated and human take on the afterlife; anyone who's been separated from their childhood home and friends should find some connection here in an experience that's more wistful and eerie than terrifying. Veteran cinematographer Noboru Shinoda also makes sure this is a truly gorgeous film to behold with striking landscape shots and atmospheric cave interiors, while director Shunichi Nagasaki uses sound (arguably the most important element of most J-horror films) to keep you constantly engaged with the material.

Also on disc one is the more overtly horrific Isola: Multiple Personality Girl from 2000, which interestingly precedes more famous disaster-themed spooky films to come a couple of years later including The Mothman Prophecies and The Eye. Cranked out to play as a supporting feature to Ring 0: Birthday, it's also a lot more fractured as a psychic named Yukari (Kimura) who volunteers to help in the aftermath of the disastrous 1995 Kobe earthquake. However, her abilities prove to be a big issue when she crosses paths with Chihiro (Kurosawa), who suffers from multiple personality disorder and seems to be harboring a vengeful spirit with a strange vendetta. The exact hows and whys of all this are a little garbled, though you do get a few obligatory creepy ghost moments here, some fun visual tricks involving the personalities, a few squishy gore effects and some eyeball menacing, and even a fleeting Takashi Miike cameo for good measure.

Both of these films were out on U.S. DVD from Adness back in the early '00s along with multiple international releases, but they look much better than ever before here with very detailed transfers that also correct the black levels to the intended deep, rich look that's been largely absent before. As with all but one of the other titles in this Blu-ray set, they each have DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 Japanese mixes with optional English subtitles. Each features a new audio commentary as well; the always reliable Tom Mes does the honors for Shikoku, breaking down its cultural references, the history of the locale, and the film's place in the first wave of J-horror, among other subjects. Then Jasper Sharp and Amber T. join forces for an in-depth and rewarding dive into Isola talking about the earthquake, the merging of psychic and ghost story tropes, connections to other genre films around that time, and the relationship between theatrical and home video audiences. In "The Aftermath" (23m53s), Mes explains how the J-horror boom rose out of the 1990s home video market when Toho dominated the local theatrical market, with horror proving to be an affordable and effective way of tapping into social anxieties and folklore in a way that resonated far and wide. "Something in the Water" (22m54s) is a new interview with Shikoku's Nagasaki about how he approached layering the film's narrative secrets, the decision to shoot on location in the titular location after finding just the right village, and the process of organizing the shoot. Ported over from earlier editions are short archive interviews with Nagasaki (3m47s) and actors Chiaki Kuriyama (2m15s) and Yui Natsukawa (3m34s), while Isola has archive interviews with actors Yoshino Kimura (1m44s) and Yu Kurosawa (1m32s). Then you get some raw production footage of the filming of Shikoku (3m27s) and Isola (2m45s), a trailer for Isola paired with Ring 0, and a Shikoku trailer (paired with Ring 2) and two TV spots plus image galleries for both films.

Disc two kicks off with 2001's Inugami, another one from that Adness stable on DVD and a fixture on video store shelves for a while. In an isolated mountain village of Omine, middle-aged Miki (Amami) works as a papermaker and tends to the needs of her family, the Bonomiyas, a reclusive clan who, according to town legend, are responsible for controlling the inugami (or evil dog spirits) which once threatened the town. As the annual rites of the ancestors approach, she meets traveling school teacher Akira (Harada) and soon makes love with him during a rainy downpour inside a nearby cave... while eerie dog howling can be heard outside. Soon mysterious disasters befall the village and Miki seems to magically grow younger by the day, as Akira comes to realize that his own family, located in a nearby village, may be connected to the strange Bonomiyas and their supernatural connection to the well-being of their people.

An odd fantasy with tinges of horror and eroticism, Inugami seems deliberately designed to avoid being pidgeonholed into one genre and instead dollops on enough storylines and characters to merit keeping a checklist to avoid confusion. It's all beautifully shot and makes excellent use of the lush, verdant locales, sometimes recalling Herzog in its sense of the commingling of nature and human mysticism. As with many of its ilk, Inugami seems less concerned with untying all of its narrative knots and instead strives for a heady atmosphere of organic sensuality, coupled with jolts of grotesquerie and nods to modern technology that somehow manage to stay within the tone of the overall film. Drawing on established tropes of Japanese mythology, the film never ventures into the truly macabre (which may frustrate viewers expecting a more traditional Japanese frightfest) but does offer its own subdued charms for those willing to go along with its deliberate rhythms.

Completely different in every way is the other film on disc two: St. John's Wort, a sort of cinematic spin-off from the '90s Japanese horror video game of the same name. Shot in a very extreme, stylized method that makes Wong Kar-wai look drab, it's a very hi-tech spin on a haunted story as video game artist and model Nami (Ju-on: The Grudge's Okina) and game designer on-and-off boyfriend Kohei (Saito) decide to scope out the creepy old house where she was born and which seems to be connected to her recurring eerie dreams. The plan is to use the place to create backgrounds for the new St. John's Wort video game with the rest of the tech crew back at the office, but of course, things get uncanny very quickly as the house's secrets start spilling out and infiltrating the potential game.

Easily the most unorthodox film in the set, St. John's Wort won't be for all tastes but does serve as quite the nostalgic blast if you loved video games around the turn of the millennium. The combination of gaming imagery, dreams, hallucinations, and jump scares makes for a fun mix even if it doesn't always make a ton of sense, and the mixed media approach keeps you on your toes all the way to obligatory sting in the tale ending.

All three English-friendly DVD incarnations of Inugami in the early '00s offered a nice, clean anamorphic transfer, though only the U.S. disc from Adness featured Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio options. The latter is extremely evocative and makes the most of the ambient sound effects (though the milquetoast music isn't helped out much either way), and it sounds even better on the Blu-ray. Inugami comes with a new audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Jonathan Clements who dissects the folklore elements, the rapid escalation and transitions going on in Japanese horror at the time, and the lineage of the dog spirit idea, while St. John's Wort has Amber T. going solo this time for a very adept look at the film's complex take on technology, the role of video gaming in wider pop culture at the time, the integration of classic myths and horror ideas into the gaming format, and more. "Dog Days" (29m50s) is a new video interview with Inugami director Masato Harada about the influence of author Karen Blixen on him, his reluctance to embrace the term "horror," his frustration with this getting paired up locally with St. John's Wort, and the nature of working with Toho at the time. The latter film has a raw footage interviews with actors Megumi Okina -- both an intro (44s) and long chat (17m39s), Koichiro Saito (19m50s), Reiko Matsuo (4m24s), and Koji Okura (4m56s). You also get on-set behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of St. John's Wort (21m51s), four TV spots (one paired with Inugami), and image galleries for both films.

Easily the most traditionally horrific film in the set and one of the best starting points for newbies arrives on disc three with Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, an extrapolation of a familiar urban legend about a sinister masked woman who approaches strangers asking "Am I pretty?" and doling out mutilation, murder, or a pass depending on the answer. Made in 2007, it came along late in the golden era and delivers some ghoulish slasher-flavored thrills with a particularly intense and nightmarish twist on the unstoppable Japanese female specter. In this case, children are being kidnapped in a town where teacher Kyoko (Sato) is dealing with her own custody arrangement with her daughter. She and fellow teacher Noboru (Kato) start probing into the crimes and make several disturbing discoveries, including the true nature of the assailant and its connection to Noboru's past.

Though it's more of a throwaway pulp chiller compared to the top tier of J-horror, Carved definitely delivers the chills where necessary thanks to some grisly makeup work and a couple of surprisingly harrowing attack sequences. Like most of these films it has a dark fatalistic quality, here made more queasy with the majority of the victims being kids (though there's nothing overly graphic involving them in the film).

On the same disc is the least seen film in the batch, 2000's Persona, a visually striking blend of social allegory and crazy genre-mashing mayhem that feels very much like the notebook doodling of a high school student at the end of the 20th century. Here the story kicks off when a bullied high school student starts showing up in class wearing a porcelain mask that causes his entire personality to change to a more aggressive one. From there two plot strands develop as students Yuki (Kurosu) and Ashihara (Ishigaki) become involved in a murder at a party and an investigation into a mysterious mask maker, while the modeling world becomes fixated on the mask idea and spreads it out to the wider public.

Much of the interest here lies in the chance to see another teaming of two stars from Kenji Fukasaku's legendary Battle Royale, Tatsuya Fujiwara (who has a very prominent role) and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 icon Chiaki Kuriyama, striking here as always with her fairly limited screen time. This one was actually shot first, and while you might expect there to be some kind of haunted mask type of scenario, it actually plays out more like a Japanese giallo with some scenes playing very much in the vein of something like Nothing Underneath or Too Beautiful to Die. How much it actually works will be up to individual taste (as with George Romero's thematically similar Bruiser), but there's no denying that the film looks great and moves fast. Both titles on this disc look fine but have a softer, flatter look than the preceding ones, which seems to be true to the source. They're both very stylish at times, with Persona in particular going crazy with colorful lighting and costumes that make it a real joy to watch at times. Carved, which has had an extensive video history including its releases from Tartan at the label's height turning out Japanese genre fare, gets the usual 5.1 and 2.0 options while Persona is the only one with just a 2.0 stereo mix; it's obvious that one was the lowest priority here as it's also the only one without a commentary. On Carved you get a new commentary by Zack Davisson discussing many cultural aspects of the film including classroom setups, the types of police, the background of the story, the folklore aspects (his specialty), and the thousands of yokai throughout Japanese history that have populated scary stories. "Why So Serious?" (18m40s) features Carved director Koji Shiraishi talking about the fame of the source urban legend, his recruiting to make this film, the backstory scene added to avoid the title character seeming ridiculous, and much more. In "Weapon of Choice" (16m56s), Lindsay Nelson focuses on the dual strains of Shiraishi's filmmaking, the role of folklore and ghost stories in his work, and the way this film interprets a familiar story of disfigurement and social peril. "Confessions of a Mask" (17m12s) is a new interview with Persona director Takashi Komatsu covering the mob mentality he wanted to study with the film, his work for Kadokawa, and his thoughts on genre classification. Also included are image galleries for both films, with two for Carved (production stills and behind the scenes)

Finally disc four is devoted entirely to 2005's Noroi: The Curse, our one excursion here into that other big horror craze at the time, found footage. The biggest fan favorite of the set, it's presented as the existing material from a documentary being made by paranormal documentarian Masafumi Kobayashi (Muraki) with the participation of real-life actress Marika Matsumoto, a fun Ghostwatch-style touch. The initial subject is a mysterious woman named Junko Ishii and her son, whose home was the subject of rumors involving the recurring sounds of crying infants. A chain of bizarre clues involving dead birds, numerous human disappearances and suicides, and local rituals point to the involvement of a demon called Kagutaba. We know at the beginning that a large fire erupted and Kobayashi has disappeared, but the circumstances behind it all are on a much larger scale than imagined.

Clever, creepy, and intricately plotted, Noroi is a solid example of what found footage could achieve in the right hands. Instead of delivering cheap shocks, it accumulates tons of foreboding details ("ectoplasmic worms" being one of the most memorable) while stacking up a narrative with ghost and possession ideas all swirled together. As this was obviously shot on video with varying formats, this one can only benefit so much from the bump to Blu-ray but looks about as good as possibly could -- and that 5.1 track is a manipulative wonder at times. Julian Singleton contributes the last commentary in the set, and it's another worthy one analyzing the strain of found footage in Japanese cinema, the integration of classical horror ideas into the template, and the elements that would have resonated with local audiences, not to mention the film's legacy as one of the strongest of its ilk. "Director's POV" (25m38s) is a new video interview with director Shiraishi (back again after Carved) about the local history of paranormal documentaries, his approach to building a narrative through various media, and his own background in that market for home video. Then "The Man in the Shadows" (17m48s) features producer Taka Ichise going into his dense history with the Japanese horror scene during its height and the origins with adapting Ring. "Changing Perspective" (21m56s) is a new video essay by Nelson honing in on the state of the J-horror craze tapering out around that time and the way found footage worked its way into this entry. In "Ectoplasmic Worms" (20m32s), Amber T. goes in front of the camera this time discussing the cosmic and existential horrors embedded in this film, the Japanese and international influences at play, and the importance of this film within the director's work. Also included are 13 deleted scenes (coming up to over 30 minutes in total), a teaser, trailer, three TV spots, and image gallery, and two fun ballyhoo featurettes in the same vein as the ones conjured up to plug The Blair Witch Project: "How to Protect Yourself Against Curses" (13m35s) and "Urgent Report! Pursuing the Truth about Kagutaba!! TV Special" (38m11s).

Reviewed on October 22, 2024.