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The majority of Junji Itō adaptations are underseen or simply unknown. The sheer amount may also come as a surprise. The peak of movies based on the horror mangaka’s works was during the “J-Horror” wave; The Ring (1998) signaled a sea change in Japanese horror, and studios were looking everywhere for inspiration. Unfortunately, Itō is not the easiest of source materials. His stories and illustrations are surreal and visceral, and translating all of that into moving images is, to say the least, challenging.

Two years after living-dead girl Tomie made the leap to the big screen in 1998, Uzumaki was brought to life. The movie, which was put on a double-bill with Tomie: Replay, served as Akihiro “Higuchinsky” Higuchi’s feature debut. And so far in the cinematic collective derived from Itō’s oeuvre, Uzumaki is one of the most competent. Other adaptations have been partly inspired by their basis; they...

Vipco & BayView Entertainment have released the Asian horror film The House Of The Serpent, which is now available on Digital Platforms worldwide including on Hoopla in the USA.

The House Of The Serpent will arrive on AVOD Digital Platforms worldwide on 30th July 2024.

Takahashi gained prominence in the horror genre with collaborations with director Hideo Nakata on films such as “Don’t Look Up” (1996) and “The Ring” (1998), contributing significantly to the J-horror boom. His other screenplay credits include “Serpent’s Path”, “Orochi: Blood”, and Netflix’s “Ju-On: Origins”. In 2004, he made his feature film directorial debut with “Sodom the Killer.” Subsequently, he directed a series of horror films including “Sea of Madness” (2007), “The Sylvian Experiments” (2010), “The Carol of the Old Ones” (2011), and “Occult Bolshevism” (2017). Takahashi is also an author and published books as well as a collection of screenplays.

Synopsis:

Naomi (Shoko Nakahara, an actress and playwright, is writing a new play...

The Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2024 will celebrate its 21st edition from July 13th (Sat) to 21st (Sun), 2024 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production.

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 31st, 2024 (Wed) – March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival remains committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now calling for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director's 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2024 (Fri)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

All nominated films in competition categories are eligible for the Festival Organizers awards.

The Japanese horror boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, spawned in large part by Hideo Nakata’s Ring, gets the spotlight in the upcoming documentary The J-Horror Virus.

Check out the trailer below, first shared by Fangoria earlier today.

From Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp, The J-Horror Virus is said to be a “feature-length documentary charting the origins, evolution and diffusion across the world of a distinctive brand of made-in-Japan supernatural chillers that seeped into the global consciousness at the turn of the millennium, films featuring vengeful ghosts manifesting themselves through contemporary technology again a backdrop of urban alienation and social decay.”

The synopsis continues, “From its origins in Teruyoshi Ishii’s 1988 fake documentary Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Norio Tsuruta’s seminal Scary True Stories (1991/92) straight-to-video series, through such key titles as Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) and Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge...

New York, NY (6/9/23) – As announced by Pw Children's Bookshelf, four new titles will be joining Jy, the middle grade imprint of Yen Press, LLC. As a new expansion initiative, Jy will be releasing prose novels selected from Kadokawa's Tsubasa Bunko label, which has held the top share in children's books in Japan for the last ten years. Through this initiative, Jy will capture all of the appeal that has been driving unprecedented sales and awareness for manga and light novels for the past several years and extend that to younger readers with books that have been previously unavailable in this market. The spot illustrations throughout these books will immediately interest kids who have grown up with manga and anime.

The four titles include Phantom Thief Red, Horror Collector, Online! The Unbeatable Game, and Canine Detective Chris.These middle grade novels are sure to enthrall children's imaginations and encourage reluctant...

After the success of the original film, the decision was made to explore the life of the beloved protagonist Sadako from the original Ringu with some of the same individuals behind the camera. With an adaptation of several stories in Koji Suzuki's short-story collection Birthday that contained several stories to fill in the details of Sadako's history and newcomer Norio Tsuruta filling in for director Hideo Nakata, this is a fine entry that helps to cement gaps in the story from the previous films.

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Prequel to the horror film “Ringu”, this movie provides the background story of how Sadako (Yukie Nakama) later became a vengeful murdering spirit. The story starts with her as a shy, somewhat withdrawn college student who nonetheless gets involved in a drama club. The director thinks she has talent, but some of the other performers start to get jealous of the attention he gives her.

A new episode of the Horror TV Shows We Miss video series has just been released, and in this one we’re looking back at the Showtime horror anthology series Masters of Horror, which ran for two seasons and a total of 26 episodes, premiering in October of 2005 and wrapping up in February of 2007. To find out what we had to say about Masters of Horror, check out the video embedded above!

Created by Mick Garris, Masters of Horror stood out among horror anthology shows due to the fact that the hour-long episodes were directed by some of the most highly respected genre filmmakers. Directors who contributed to the series include Garris himself, Don Coscarelli, Stuart Gordon, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento, Joe Dante, John Landis, John Carpenter, William Malone, Lucky McKee, Larry Cohen, John McNaughton, Takashi Miike, Ernest Dickerson, Brad Anderson, Rob Schmidt, Tom Holland, Peter Medak, and Norio Tsuruta. George A. Romero...

We are happy to announce that the Skip City International D-Cinema Festival 2023 will celebrate its 20th anniversary edition from July 15th (Sat) to 23th (Sun), 2023 for 9 days at Skip City, which is an integrated institution for digital cinema production

(See: https://www.skipcity-dcf.jp/en/)

Submission period: January 25th, 2023 (Wed) – March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

We remain committed to discovering and nurturing new talent, with the aim of helping these filmmakers seize new business opportunities that have arisen in the changing landscape of the film industry. Now we call for works (60 min. or longer) that have been shot digitally and must be the director’s 1st, 2nd, or 3rd feature film from all over the world for the International Competition section.

Call for entries for the International Competition!!

Entry Deadline: Must be received by March 1st, 2023 (Wed)

Submit via FilmFreeway

https://filmfreeway.com/Skipcityinternationald-CinemaFESTIVAL (Online registration / Free)

Our International Competition welcomes you!

The 19th edition of Skip City International D-Cinema Festival had been physically held in three years from July 16 to July 24 (and virtually from July 21 to July 27), and wrapped at the Closing Ceremony, Sunday July 24. Jury and Audience award winners were announced at the Ceremony.

Softie (France), directed by Samuel Theis, received the Grand Prize in the International Competition. Magnetic Beats, directed by Vincent Maël Cardona, won the Best Director and Utama, directed by Alejandro Loayza Grisi, received Special Jury Prize. This year’s jury members were Shinobu Terajima, President of the Jury and the Berlinale Silver Bear winning actress, Daishi Matsunaga, the director of Hanalei Bay and Pieta in the Toilet, and Nam Dong-chul, Busan International Film Festival, Program Director. In addition, Her Way (France), directed by Cécile Ducrocq, was chosen for the Audience Award.

Skip City Award, which is selected from all Japanese films both in the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition,...

Based on Koji Suzuki’s “Birthday”, which collects three short stories that fill in details of the story of “Ring”, the third cinematic entry of the original movie trilogy saw a change in the helm, from Hideo Nakata to Norio Tsuruta, which resulted, unfortunately, to the worst part of the series at the time.

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The story takes place 30 years before the events of the first two movies, where Akiko Miyaji, the fiancé of a fellow reporter who was killed during Shizuko’s infamous Esp demonstration, is researching the event and particularly Sadako, by talking to her former teachers and eventually to a psychiatrist who is treating her. In the meantime, 19-year-old Sadako has joined a theatrical troupe as an understudy, as a therapy to her nightmares suggested by her doctor. Her hard work and her undeniable beauty have made her popular with both the director, Yusaku and the sound director,...

Chinese horror film directed by J-horror pioneer is based on Ma Boyong’s popular internet novel.

Hong Kong-based sales company Autumn Sun has picked up international rights, excluding China, to Chinese horror film The Perilous Internet Ring, directed by Japan’s Norio Tsuruta.

Produced by Beijing-based Dasheng Legend, the film is based on popular internet novel She Died On Qq, written by Ma Boyong, who also executive produced the film.

Tsuruta was one of the pioneers of the J-horror boom, along with filmmakers such as Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu, directing films including Ring 0: Birthday (2000), which was a prequel...

Shudder has a packed August lineup that should excite any horror fan, including exclusive premieres, classic titles, and special events. Here's a look at their offerings:

From the Press Release:

Host (premieres Thursday, July 30)

Six friends hire a medium to hold a séance over Zoom during lockdown but get far more than they bargain for as things quickly go wrong. Host was shot remotely during quarantine and features practical scares, stunts, and surprises, all filmed by the actors in their own homes. Director Rob Savage (Dawn of the Deaf) never set foot in the same room as his actors at any point during production and instead directed them remotely. Starring: Haley Bishop (Deep State), Radina Drandova (Dawn of the Deaf), Edward Linard (The Rebels), Jemma Moore (Doom: Annihilation), Caroline Ward (Stalling It) and Emma Louise Webb (The Crown). A Shudder Original (Also available on Shudder Canada and Shudder UK)

LA Llorona (premieres Thursday,...

Movie trilogies have emerged in world cinema during the last decade or so, as one of the most favorite medium of films, and probably, as a countermeasure to the growing popularity of TV series. Evidently, this does not mean that there have not been trilogies in the past, but it seems like, at the moment, this is where the movie industry is heading.

In Asian cinema, though, trilogies have been a favorite medium since the 50’s, with their impact continuing to these days, although not in the same extend as in Hollywood. Filmmakers of the magnitutde of Satyajit Ray and Yasuhiro Ozu felt that a single movie could not contain their vision, and proceeded on shooting trilogies that include some of the all time, international masterpieces.

The tendency continues to later decades, with a number of the most acclaimed Asian directors presenting their own, either loose (Park Chan-wook and Wong...

When Showtime announced their lineup for their Masters of Horror anthology series back in 2005, one thing became clear pretty quickly: the show was going to focus almost entirely on American masters of horror. With the exception of Takashi Miike’s “Imprint” in season 1 and Norio Tsuruta’s “Dream Cruise” in season 2, the only episodes directed by a non-American are the ones directed by the great Dario Argento, the Crown Prince of Italian horror. And for those of you keeping score of these Italian horror designations, Mario Bava is the Godfather, Lucio Fulci the Maestro, Bruno Mattei the Fool. Everyone has their role to play.

Season 1, Episode 4: “Jenifer”

Director: Dario Argento

Original Air Date: November 18th, 2005

Argento’s first Masters of Horror offering, called simply “Jenifer,” is another highlight of the series and arguably the best thing the director has made since Trauma in 1993. Based on a 1973 comic book short story by Bruce Jones,...

With the golden age of video stores now in the rearview mirror (every month I'm still tempted to leave a bouquet of roses in memoriam at the building down the street that used to be a Blockbuster), horror fans now "stream to scream" from a wide variety of outlets, including Screambox, who just launched on Amazon Channels to bring more than 300 horror titles to Amazon Prime, including The Stuff.

Press Release: Los Angeles, Calif (September 28, 2017) Screambox, the #1 streaming service for die-hard horror fans, now has more than 300 movies available as part of the Screambox monthly subscription on Amazon Channels. The no-holds-barred horror streaming service is now available to U.S. customers for just $4.99/month after a 7-day free trial. New releases every week allow subscribers to binge on bloodbaths, gruesome gore, sick psychos and ravenous zombies like never before.

Amazon Channels gives Prime members the ability to watch over 100 on-demand...

Exclusive: Premonition director’s next project stars Death Note’s Erika Toda [pictured].

Geneon Entertainment and Capture The Flag Films have announced a Japan-France co-production on Premonition director Norio Tsuruta’s upcoming The Cursed Diary.

Currently in pre-production, the Japanese-language supernatural mystery is scheduled to start shooting in June in the Tokyo area. With screenplay written by Junya Kato (The Complex), the film’s budgeted at around $5m.

Erika Toda from Death Note will play the lead Reiko, a reporter who returns from Paris to Tokyo to investigate her parents’ strange brutal deaths. French model Theo Gauchet will play her successful actor boyfriend. They will be joined by Lisa Ulliel (Saint Laurent) and Mina Asakura.

Geneon (Premonition) and Capture the Flag Films (The Horde) are producing while Twins Japan is co-producing.

Mikihiko Hirata (Marebito) and Marcel Giroux (Martyrs) are attached as producers. Mandarin Films’ Isabelle Grellat is attached as executive producer.

Films Distribution will handle...

Pov: Norowareta Film a J-Horror movie is directed by Tsuruta Norio and stars two teenagers Shida Mirai and Kawaguchi Haruna who play themselves in the film. Director Norio Tsuruta is best known for his 2004 movie Premonition. Pov is about Shida Mirai and Kawaguchi Haruna who are on a filming set for a special program about psychic phenomenons. The monitor screen begins to show something entirely different than what they were expecting.. Pov will be the first time that Kawaguchi Haruna will play the lead role in and the film was filmed at the junior high school that he graduated from.

I'm not entirely sure what Pov is exactly about - but it doesn't appear to be straying too far from a lot of J-Horror's signature visual cues. For me, I'm not all that intrigued just yet. But if it blows your (schoolgirl) skirt up I'm stoked to share the trailer with you. The film is directed by Norio Tsuruta (King's Game, Premonition and Ring 0: Birthday). There's a bunch of other stuff on the official site but it's all in Japanese - so any translators out there that want to keep us informed in the comments are certainly welcome to do so! Hit the jump to check out the trailer.

Utilizing all of the tropes we've come to expect from a "found footage" film comes the J-horror entry Pov. The film comes from filmmaker Norio Tsuruta who previously helmed Premonition, Ring 0: Birthday and the Masters of Horror entry "Dream Cruise."  The story unfolds during a taping for a TV show about spiritual phenomena until an unplanned video begins playing on the monitors.  You can check out the trailer inside and watch a bunch of school girls running about.

Read more...

'Pov: Norowareta firumu' is the latest horror jaunt from Japanese director Norio Tsuruta ('Premonition'). A new trailer has been revealed over at the official site for the movie where actresses Shida Mirai and Kawaguchi Haruna play theirselves. The story begins to unfold during a taping for a TV show about spiritual phenomena, when an unplanned video begins playing on the monitors. It opens in Japan from 18 February and you can check out all the info for the movie over at the official site at the link below. However, good luck as it's all in Japanese!...

Writer director Norio Tsuruta is probably best known to those in the west for his 2004 fright flick ‘Premonition,’ and whilst his latest work Pov doesn’t appear to bring all that much new to the table, its does looks a fair sight spookier than most efforts we’ve seen of late. Its becoming pretty clear that much of Japanese horror movie (well...what’s left of it) production is in dire need of a renaissance...and soon! Pov opens in Japan February 18th. Check out the films official site below.

One film festival I'm bound and determined to make it to one of these years is the South African HorrorFest, but for now I'll just have to live vicariously through those of you who live close enough to attend. And after taking a look at this year's lineup, I'm pretty sure that if you are in the area, you won't want to miss it!

Growing into the country's ultimate Halloween event covering indie, new and classic movies, short films, music, literature and a range of Halloween festivities, 2011 marks the annual South African HorrorFest's lucky 7th year! It runs 26 October through 4 November.

Almost each of the exciting feature films and short films make their South African theatrical premieres. The Makabra Ensemble will also debut their Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde movie soundtrack performance, live to the screening of this 1920 silent classic.

In addition to the colourful audience Halloween dress-up event linked up with the live soundtrack show,...

Norio Tsuruta is no stranger to the world of J-Horror; he's been involved in it since the early 90s. Yet one is left to wonder if there are any fresh ideas out there as the co-stars and synopsis of his next film, Pov Norowareta Film, were announced. 'Norowareta' means 'cursed' by the way...The story begins to unfold during a taping for a TV show about spiritual phenomena, when an unplanned video begins playing on the monitors.The co-stars of Tsuruta's film will be Kawaguchi Haruna and Shida Mirai. Both are fairly new to the scene, though Mirai has more experience respectively, and both are still in their teens. In fact the film will be shot at the junior high school Haruna graduated from. Until we see...

Note: This article was originally posted on 4/29. Skip to the bottom for the most recent update.

It’s been known for a few weeks now that Hello! Project pop star and idol Erina Mano (19) would be visiting Los Angeles to be guest at Anime Expo 2010, thanks to this tweet by Tokyograph. Now further details of her trip have been revealed. During her visit, an advance screening will be held for a new horror movie called Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro: Kaiki (no word yet on the English title) which marks Mano’s debut as a film actress.

The movie was directed by Makoto Shinozaki (Tokyo-jima) and is based on two short films, “Tsukimono” and “Nozomi”, from the omnibus horror television series “Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro”. The original series was broadcast on Bs-tbs in 2003 and consisted of around 100 short films directed by major names in J-horror such as Norio Tsuruta (Orochi: Blood) and...

Ok, so we've seen the poster and the stills for the next chiller coming out of Japan, Hiroshi Takahashi's latest spook-fest Kyôfu. Now how about some good old fashioned trailer action? Mind you, there are no subtitles, but hey, the language of fear is universal!

For those of you following along the steps of the "J-Horror Theater" franchise, the sixth installment in the series (the other five films being Hideo Nakata's Kaidan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution, Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation, Norio Tsuruta's Premonition, and Masayuki Ochiai's Infection), Hiroshi Takahashi's Kyôfu, is getting set to make its debut in Japan this July. To help you gear up for this auspicious occasion, be sure to also visit the official Kyôfu website.

There are no details available about the movie just yet, but we'll let you know when something more meaty comes our way.

Check out the trailer below courtesy of Gomorrahy.

We told you about Hiroshi Takahashi's latest Japanese spook-fest Kyôfu a few weeks ago and even showed you a few stills from the flick to get you into the long black-haired spirit of things. Ready for the one-sheet? No? Well, here it is anyway!

For those of you following along the steps of the "J-Horror Theater" franchise, the sixth installment in the series (the other five films being Hideo Nakata's Kaidan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution, Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation, Norio Tsuruta's Premonition, and Masayuki Ochiai's Infection), Hiroshi Takahashi's Kyôfu, is getting set to make its debut in Japan this July. To help you gear up for this auspicious occasion, the official Kyôfu website has been updated with some bells and whistles including the artwork you see below.

There are no details available about the movie just yet, but we'll let you know when something more meaty comes our way.

The official website for Hiroshi Takahashi‘s Kyofu (terror, horror, fear, fright - take your pick) has been updated with a trailer for the film.

Takahashi was the screenwriter for Hideo Nakata‘s “Ring”, the 1998 film which launched the J-horror wave that had Japanese teenagers biting their fingernails and routinely screaming “yada yada!” for several years afterward. Most would agree that particular wave has been pretty much kaput for a good while now, but don’t tell that to producer Takashige Ichise, who keeps finding ways to get worldwide distribution for the “J-Horror Theater” series of horror films he’s been involved with from the beginning. As the trailer shows, the series includes Masayuki Ochiai’s “Infection”, Norio Tsuruta’s “Premonition”, Takashi Shimizu’s “Reincarnation”, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Retribution”, and Hideo Nakata’s “Kaidan”. Kyofu is intended to be the sixth entry in the series.

The theme of the film...

From the writer of The Ring comes an experiment which gives me some serious Dreamscape vibes.

As we previous reported, Kyôfu is being promoted as the sixth and final movie in the "J-Horror Theater" (J horâ shiatâ) series - the five previous movies being Hideo Nakata's Kaidan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution

(Sakebi), Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation (Rinne), Norio Tsuruta's

Premonition and Masayuki Ochiai's Infection (Kansen).

Trailer after the break. via The Gomorrahizer

Embedded video stripped, see full HTML version.

Is anybody really still watching J-horror anymore? I don't know about you guys, but we've pretty much had our fill of spooky little girls dressed in white with long black hair. Even our own Andrew Kasch only gets a half a chub when a new Japanese flick comes out, and that's really saying something!

For those of you following along the steps of the "J-Horror Theater" franchise, the sixth installment in the series (the other five films being Hideo Nakata's Kaidan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution, Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation, Norio Tsuruta's Premonition, and Masayuki Ochiai's Infection), Hiroshi Takahashi's Kyôfu, is getting set to make its debut in Japan this July. To help you gear up for this auspicious occasion, the official Kyôfu website has been launched. Right now it's only home to some teaser art, but we'll keep an eye on it in case anything interesting pops up.

We've just been informed by our pal The Gomorrahizer that a website for The Ring's Hiroshi Takahashi's newest j horror film, Kyôfu, has gone live. We've also been shown some first stills which are quite a sight.

Apparently, Kyôfu is being promoted as the sixth and final movie in the "J-Horror Theater" (J horâ shiatâ) series - the five previous movies being Hideo Nakata's Kaidan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Retribution

(Sakebi), Takashi Shimizu's Reincarnation (Rinne), Norio Tsuruta's

Premonition and Masayuki Ochiai's Infection (Kansen).

Tokyo Theatres Co. Inc. (Tôkyô Teatoru K.K.) plans to release Kyôfu

theatrically in Japan in July.

Check out the stills after the break.

Head to Quiet Earth to see the stills.

While there are no mainstream horror releases this week, it's a Huge week for fans of under-the-radar titles, vintage frights, indie and international horror.

There's quite a few re-issues, some titles hitting Blu-ray for the first time, and several collections hitting stores. Below the jump you can view the full list of genre DVD & Blu-Ray titles arriving tomorrow, Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 in this weekly version of the famous Fangoria Chopping List - updated with all the last minute additions and deletions.

The 10th Victim

It is the 21st Century, and society's lust for violence is satisfied by "The Big Hunt," an international game of legalized murder. But when the sport's two top assassins (Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress) are pitted against each other, they find that love is the most dangerous game of all. As the world watches, the hunt is on. Who will become The 10th Victim?

The 10th...

**Please Note: This will be at the top for a while; be sure to scroll down for updated news stories!** Horror may currently be in a slump, but the 2008 American Film Market has shown a huge light at the end of the tunnel. This year showcased a record number of horror titles and Dread Central was on hand to catch a great deal of them. Some were good, some were bad but all showed that this genre still has plenty of lifeblood left. Many exhibitors were also kind enough to show us movie promos, while others coldly showed us the door (Lesbian Vampire Killers, I’m looking at you). The most promising show previews were easily Night of the Demons and Clive Barker’s Dread, with plenty of new projects being announced. Check out our full Afm '08 coverage here.

So without further ado, we present you with our yearly...

It has been so long since we talked about the movie adaptation of the Kazuo Umezu manga Orochi that we completely missed the first teaser. Never fear. Nippon Cinema has picked up the first full trailer for it and by their own account it is much better than the teaser.

[Twitch] We have our two sisters, Kazusa and Lisa. For Lisa, no matter what she does, her sister Kazusa has done it better. Lisa is always told that she’ll never be comparable to her sister. As any sibling rivalry is wont to do it results in feelings of jealousy and vengeance. As Lisa grows she learns to hate and at times lashes out at the sister she once loved… [Nippon Cinema] A third girl named Orochi observes the situation and acts as a narrator for the story. Orochi is an ageless being who must sleep every 100 years. However, when she saves Lisa...

Showtime's Masters of Horror has firmed up the list of guest stars for the anthology series' upcoming second season that includes such names as Jason Priestley, Elliott Gould and Christopher Lloyd. Additionally, the series has added helmers Peter Medak, Rob Schmidt, Norio Tsuruta, Brad Anderson, Ernest Dickerson and Todd Holland, who are each directing an episode. Priestley and Gould star in the episode The Screwfly Solution, about a deadly virus that transforms men into psychotic killers. Joe Dante is directing from a script by Sam Hamm. Lloyd co-stars in the episode Valerie On the Stairs, which centers on an aspiring novelist (Tyron Leitso) who is visited by an muse-like ethereal creature with dark powers. Masters of Horror creator Mick Garris is directing the episode, based on a story by Clive Barker.

CANNES -- Lions Gate International has acquired worldwide distribution rights excluding Japan to producer Taka Ichise's recently announced horror franchise J-Horror Theater. The package will feature a selection of six films each by Japanese filmmakers who have worked heavily in the horror genre. The directors on board for Ichise's franchise are Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on: The Grudge), Hideo Nakata (The Ring), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure), writer-turned director Hiroshi Takahashi, Masayuki Ochiai (Parasite Eve) and Norio Tsuruta (Ring O: Birthday).