10 More Incredible Horror Movies You’ll Never Watch Again (And Why)
3. Kwaidan
Kwaidan is divided into four chapters, each one involving a spiritual encounter.
The first segment centres around an unfaithful swordsman who's haunted by the hair of the wife he abandoned, the second involves a man who unknowingly marries a snow demon, the third sees a blind musician tricked into playing songs for wicked spirits, and the film concludes with a vignette surrounding an attendant who's driven mad after seeing a face in his tea.
Not only is this quartet of spook stories gripping, tense, and beautifully shot, each finishes with a mind-blowing twist.
Although other entries in this list are hard to watch due to their gore, Kwaidan doesn't have that problem. Instead, the Oscar-nominated feature has another issue - it's extremely long.
With a 183-minute runtime, it might well be the longest horror ever made. On top of that, each sub-story is built up slowly, so its length is very noticeable.
Even though the film is slow-paced, it's engaging on a first watch, due to the suspense and lingering mystery, but when viewers are aware of every conclusion and twist, watching it again is asking a lot.