10 Horror Anthologies You Must See Before You Die
6. Kwaidan
A lot of horror anthologies have a reputation for being a tad, shall we say, schlocky but that’s not a criticism that can be levelled at Kwaidan. Directed by one of Japan’s greatest filmmaking talents Masaki Kobayashi, this arthouse horror won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and is the only horror to receive a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards to date.
At three hours long, the film is practically an epic and features four unrelated period-set vignettes based on Japanese folk tales featured in Greek-Irish émigré Lafcadio Hearn’s 1904 book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word for ‘ghost story’, the tales told in Kwaidan are more supernatural and subtly spooky than all-out scare-fests. What it lacks in total terror, however, it more than makes up for with its eerie and surreal tone and stunning cinematography.
Standout Segment:
Creepy yet gorgeously filmed, ‘The Woman of the Snow’ tells the tale of a woodcutter stranded in a snowstorm who comes across a Yuki-onna (basically a Japanese snow banshee) that spares his life on the condition he never speaks of their encounter. Guess how well the woodcutter ends up keeping his promise? Not very well. Not very well at all.