20 Most Disturbing Japanese Horror Movies Of All Time

16. Gozu (2003)

The Plot: Yakuza enforcer Minami (Hideki Sone) is tasked with assassinating his superior officer Ozaki (Sho Aikawa), whose bizarre behaviour has made him a liability to the organisation. Minami pulls off the job, but after leaving his car unattended for a few moments, finds that Ozaki's corpse has disappeared. As he goes off in search of the body, he finds himself encountering some very strange locals, and that's just the beginning... Why It's Disturbing: Takashi Miike goes the surreal David Lynch route here, and the results aren't really any less disturbing than his more straight-forward gore-fests. Aside from re-affirming Miike's fetish for lactating women, Gozu is memorable for its dreamlike, creepy imagery, including a man with a cow's head licking Minami's face, unconvincing cross-dessers, a woman giving birth to a fully-grown man, and more soup ladles being shoved up bodily orifices than anyone should ever rightly have to see. Its scarcely comprehensible tone makes it more comedic than some movies on this list, but it's also a harrowing experience all the same, wince-inducing yet difficult to turn away from.