01
Kwaidan 1964
Jumps4 Gore2 Dread6 8.6/10
Best J-Horror Movies
11 of the 14 score 4 or 5 for dread — this is a corner of horror that works on you slowly rather than making you flinch. 6 score 1 out of 5 for gore, so squeamishness is a weaker reason to skip these than people assume.
12 of them are films most horror lists never mention. Ju-On: The Grudge rates 0.9 higher on Douban than IMDb — Chinese audiences consistently read this kind of horror differently, and the gap is often the most interesting signal on the page. 6 are currently streaming on Shudder.
02
Onibaba 1964
Jumps6 Gore4 Dread8 8.5/10
03
One Cut of the Dead 2017
Jumps2 Gore4 Dread2 8.5/10
04
Cure 1997
Jumps6 Gore4 Dread10 8.4/10
05
Black Cat 1968
Jumps4 Gore4 Dread8 8.4/10
06
07
House 1977
Jumps4 Gore6 Dread4 7.9/10
08
09
Tetsuo: The Iron Man 1989
Jumps6 Gore8 Dread8 7.4/10
10
11
12
13
Three... Extremes 2004
Jumps6 Gore8 Dread8 7.0/10
14
How these are scored
Every film carries three separate 1–5 ratings — jump scares, gore and dread — because they measure different things. A film can be a 5 for dread and a 1 for gore. Scores are editorial, not aggregated from other platforms, which is the point: review aggregates tell you whether a film is good, not what it will do to you.
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