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[neithersparky]

Yay here's a community for me. :) I discovered Asian horror movies a couple of years ago but still have not seen all that many...I'm also all about the most obscure horror films I can dig up...I'd love to get recommendations from people in the know before I go and buy copies though. At work so I have to keep this short...Cheers. :)

~Sparky

Comments

[aethyrkitten]

The Ring was good for that - I did see the remake first, which I like a *lot*, then I went ahead and picked up copies of all of the Ring movies

Hah, I've little interest in seeing the Korean remake or the TV series, since the Korean one is supposed to be really sexist (all the women are wonderful, all the men are morons, etc) and the TV series is, like you said, kinda boring. I LLLOOOOVED Ring 0 though, one of the best prequel's I've ever seen IMHO.

I have the first 3 Tomie's but have only seen the first one

I'm not a big fan of the Tomie movies, although Junji Ito - who wrote the manga - is my hero. I think they're just too... what??? and the storyline often has no real point other than "Let's see how many times we can hack Tomie's head off." I've seen 4 out of 5 Tomie movies though, and aside from the music, I was never really impressed either. Junji Ito's other work is MUCH better, in my opinion.

I had wanted to see Ju-on for a while when I suddenly heard about the American remake so I quickly ordered all 4 Ju-on DVDs, watched the first one (you know, the original original one), wasn't impressed with it, and haven't gotten around to seeing the others yet.

Well, I highly recommend you watch the second version of the 1st movie (#3 in the set of 4). It's VERY good. The first two movies are *okay*, and the 2nd one has some really scary moments in it, but the fact is that the first two Juon movies are kind of what we might call student films - direct to video, and more or less created by a handful of friends. They're good storywise, but their budget was very limited. By the 3rd movie/1st movie remade, all the continued actors had time to get really into their parts, and they had a better budget and the movies were theatrically released, which DEFINITELY gives them more to work with. So the second two Juon movies are, overall, going to be better than the first two, simply because of budget and because the actors have had two movies before to really explore their roles and get into them. I do recommend the first Juon 2, just for a few freaky parts in it... the ending was really disappointing though.

It's funny that you mention Ravenous as that is one of my top favorite movies period - I showed to a group of my brother's friends recently and it got shot down. Bah. ;) The soundtrack kicks heinie.

Shame on them! Ravenous is so cool.

Let's see... some good comedy horror stuff... these are all vampire movies, but you said you liked comedy, so I'd recommend Blood & Donuts, Nightlife, and especially Love Bites. All of them are pretty hard to find, unfortunately, but if you get the sad remnants of the once-glorious Scifi channel they occasionally show these movies at like 3AM where you can tape them. Sadly I haven't seen Love Bites in ages, but it's an awesome movie.

There are tons of good movies in the vein of Ringu. There's Dark Water, which was done by the same guy who directed Ringu and Ringu 2, Hideo Nakata. Very similar kind of basic story, but also a great movie, very psychological. Red (windiain)'s review of Dark Water is the second post in this community, although it contains spoilers. The movie itself is basically about a newly-divorced single mother whose asshole ex-husband is trying to get custody of their 8 year-old daughter Ikuko (the MOST ADORABLE CHILD I HAVE EVER SEEN!!), not because he actually wants custody but just to get back at his ex-wife. The ex-wife is trying to get back into the workforce while taking care of her daughter (not easy in Japan), and as they have very little money, they have to settle on a small apartment in a gloomy, rundown apartment building that seems barely occupied. Weird stuff starts happening to Yoshimi and Ikuko... puddles of water everywhere, even a growing puddle on the ceiling of Yoshimi's bedroom, strange things in the apartment's water, Ikuko starts talking to herself, and a kids' little red bag starts showing up everywhere no matter how many times they throw it out.