20 Horror Movies That Were Way Too Cruel
5. Lesson Of The Evil
Time for an obscure one now.
Lesson of the Evil is a serial killer flick from Japanese director Takashi Miike, director of films such as Ichi the Killer and Audition. You thought those were nasty? Well, brace yourself for Lesson of the Evil.
For any first-time viewers, Lesson of the Evil, which revolves around high school teacher and serial killer Seiji Hasumi (Hideaki Ito), might not seem worthy of being on this list at first, as it's quite a slow-burn. Well, in 1999's Audition, Miike fooled audiences by making much of it a fairly chill watch before suddenly unleashing a climax of harrowing violence, and in Lesson of the Evil, he's at it again. This time, however, it all went too far.
Much of the second half of this movie consists of Hasumi carrying out a school shooting in order to remove witnesses to a crime. This entire sequence is horrendously disturbing and, in an era where school shootings are so common, this was all about as tasteless as it gets.
Japanese horror movies do often do things that many western horror flicks would never get away with, and as Lesson of the Evil shows, that isn't always a good thing. The line in the sand is there for a reason, after all.