Theme: J-horror treasures. Most horror fans of any worth are more than familiar with the J-horror output in recent years, with films by Hideo Nakata and Takeshi Miike sitting proudly amongst their DVD and Blu-ray collections. Lesser known - and thoroughly underrated and underappreciated - lie the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and it is to his unsung horror masterpieces that we turn to for our J-horror double bill. American horror fans might be aware of Pulse from its US remake, but they'd be wise to unlearn everything they saw in that very average film and return to the sinister roots of the original Japanese version. Kurosawa's vision of an overflowing after life in which the ghosts of the deceased attempt to re-enter the world of the living via the internet is an early example of "internet horror" and so much more besides. With a brooding and unsettling atmosphere permeating throughout even the most seemingly mundane scenes, it also features some of the scariest depictions of ghosts seen on film. Our second J-horror/Kiyoshi Kurosawa feature is an equally bleak and unsettling film, but this time the source of this unease comes from a mysterious serial killer who hypnotises people into killing for him. With a Hitchcockian sense of timing and a gloomy undercurrent of social criticism, this is a smart and thoroughly engrossing film which you won't forget in a hurry and deserves to develop a cult following of its own.
