Starting in 1990 as a compilation of 100 “true horror” tales from ordinary folks around Japan, “Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro (Tales of Terror)” has spawned a series of short films broadcast on the BS-TBS cable and satellite channel and three theatrical omnibuses. The franchise is the snack food of J-horror.
The fourth and latest, “Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro: Kaiki” (Tales of Terror: The Bizarre), is directed by Makoto Shinozaki, based on a script by horror specialist Ryuta Mitake. Since debuting in 1995 with “Okaeri,” a spare, powerful drama about a woman’s descent into madness that was a key film of the 1990s’ Japanese New Wave, Shinozaki has cut an idiosyncratic path across genres, from “Wasurerarenu Hitobito (Not Forgotten),” a heartfelt 2000 drama about the vanishing World War II generation, to “0093: Joheika no Kusakari Masao” (“Her Majesty’s Masao Kusakari”), a goofy 2007 spy parody, and this summer’s “Tokyo-jima (Tokyo Island),” a black comedy about a woman alone on an island with several dozen sex-starved guys.
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