I’ve got to admit, Crazy Lips and Gore From Outer Space are pretty good titles if you’re trying to get someones attention, and these two Japanese horror films from the early 2000s are finally getting a Blu-ray release from Third Window Films, and if you’ve never heard of them before, you’re probably in for something considerably stranger than the average J-horror movie.
The two films were made by Omega Pictures, the Japanese company behind films including Audition and Love Exposure, with Hirohisa Sasaki directing, Hiroshi Takahashi writing and Takashige Ichise producing.
And yes, that is quite a collection of names from Japanese cult cinema.
Crazy Lips
Released in 2000, Crazy Lips is about Satomi, whose family is suddenly surrounded by reporters after her brother is accused of going on a vicious killing spree,, but Satomi doesn’t believe he’s guilty and turns to a psychic for help.
That’s probably where most sensible people would stop, but the psychic offers answers, where the price for getting them turns out to be considerably worse than Satomi expected – it’s a pretty straightforward setup on paper, but anyone familiar with Japanese horror from this period will also probably know that straightforward is unlikely to remain straightforward for very long.
And with Hiroshi Takahashi, the writer of The Ring films, behind the screenplay, you can expect things to get considerably stranger once Satomi starts digging into what actually happened.
Gore From Outer Space
Then there’s Gore From Outer Space, which came out in 2001 and takes the insanity up another level – the story begins with Satomi about to be executed for murdering her daughter Misato, but before she’s taken away, she tells a nun what really happened – Satomi claims her daughter was kidnapped, but nobody believed her.
Then the police investigate and her husband tells them something even more disturbing – they don’t have a daughter, and from there, things head in just about every direction imaginable, involving psychics, corrupt politicians, headless corpses and strange FBI agents who eat Jello.
I’m not sure how you get from a missing child to Jello-eating FBI agents, but the film managed it.
First Time on Blu-ray
The biggest reason this release is worth mentioning is that neither film has previously been released on Blu-ray – Third Window Films is putting both movies together in a two-disc special edition, with new restorations approved by director Hirohisa Sasaki.
The transfers have been made from the original negatives, so this isn’t simply somebody taking an old digital version and putting it onto a disc – the release is also limited to 2,000 copies, so this is one for people who actually want to own these films rather than hoping they’ll eventually turn up on a streaming service.
There’s Quite a Bit of Extra Stuff
The first disc contains Crazy Lips, along with a new audio commentary from Tori Potenza and Amber T, a making-of feature and a new 2026 interview with Hirohisa Sasaki and Hiroshi Takahashi.
There are also archival interviews with Sasaki, Takahashi and Takashige Ichise, as well as the original trailer, while disc two contains Gore From Outer Space, but there’s some extra weirdness waiting after the main feature too.
It includes the short film Gore From Outer Space Prelude: Transformation and another short called Crazy Invasion, along with more archival interviews with Sasaki, Takahashi and Ichise and the original trailer.
So you’re getting more than just two old horror films cleaned up and put onto discs.
The physical release also comes with a 12-page booklet, a slipcase and full-length Scanavo cases with reversible artwork.
That’s the sort of thing I like seeing with older cult horror movies because there’s something a bit depressing about a film finally getting a physical release and then receiving the most boring packaging imaginable, but here, at least, it sounds like Third Window has treated it as a proper collector’s release.
And with only 2,000 copies, it’s clearly aimed at people who actually want to collect this sort of obscure Japanese horror rather than simply watch it once – Crazy Lips / Gore From Outer Space will be released by Third Window Films on September 14, 2026, .
For fans of obscure Japanese horror, this is the sort of release that’s worth keeping an eye on – Japanese horror really was doing some strange shit back then.
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