Imprint Films has a rather large boxset coming that might give you a few more movies to add to the list releasing soon – The Origins of J-Horror (1989 – 2023) is a new six-disc Blu-ray collection, bringing together five obscure Japanese horror movies from the late 1980s and 1990s alongside the 2023 documentary The J-Horror Virus.
The five movies included are Jaganrei: Psychic Vision (1989), Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground (1991), A Haunted School (1996), Don’t Look Up (1996) and Kokkuri (1997), and all five are making their worldwide Blu-ray debuts as part of the collection.
Five Obscure Films
The collection is built around a period of Japanese horror that doesn’t always get as much attention as the later wave that produced Ringu, Ju-On: The Grudge and the other international hits – these movies instead represent the low-budget, direct-to-video and late-night television side of Japanese horror that was developing during the late 1980s and 1990s.
The earliest film here is Jaganrei: Psychic Vision, released in 1989, followed by Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground, a 1991 anthology, before the collection moves into the mid-90s with A Haunted School and Don’t Look Up, and the final film is Kokkuri, released in 1997.
Imprint mentions the films have been sourced from the highest-quality materials available, while retaining their original low-fi presentation rather than trying to make these older productions look artificially modern.
The sixth disc contains The J-Horror Virus, a 2023 feature-length documentary from Japanese cinema experts Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp – the documentary looks at how the J-horror movement developed and includes interviews with filmmakers and experts, examining the influences and ideas that eventually helped produce the Japanese horror boom of the 1990s and early 2000s.
There is also a sizeable amount of reading material included, because the limited-edition boxset comes with a 100-page hardcover booklet containing brand-new essays from Erica Shultz, Camille Zaurin, Tom Mes, Amber T and Sarah Appleton.
The Origins of J-Horror (1989 – 2023) is being released on October 28, 2026, with the six-disc Hardbox priced at AUD $179.95, where the set is limited to 1,500 copies – some international retailers are also listing November 11, 2026, so there appears to be a difference between the Australian Imprint date and some overseas listings.
More Asian horror movie news.
- Erica – Japanese Psychological Horror Gets DVD Release in October
- Iwaiyama Gets Deluxe Blu-ray and DVD Release in Japan This November
- The Eye 1 & 2 Get a 4K UHD and Blu-ray Release from Carlotta Films
- The Sacred & The Cursed: Severin Brings Four Joko Anwar Horror Films Together in Huge Blu-ray Collection
- Incomplete Chairs: Kenichi Ugana’s Gory Japanese Horror Gets a DVD Release
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