In the throes of the Second World War, according to Ken Wiederhorn’s 1977 cult favorite SHOCK WAVES, Nazi Germany began a project to create the ultimate soldier: a warrior who could subsist in any environment and have the strength of a dozen men. The monstrosity they concocted was known as the Death Corps (or Toten Corps).

To anyone who thinks that Japanese horror began with 1998’s RINGU, think again. The Far East was making spooky movies as far back as the late 1940s, and many of these early spinetinglers are seeing the light of day in the U.S., thanks to DVD, theatrical reissues and festivals. Following their successful rerelease of HOUSE (a.k.a. HAUSU from 1977; see article in FANGORIA #298) last January, Janus Films has dug up 1968’s KURONEKO (original title: YABU NO NAKA NO KURONEKO), which will make its New York theatrical premiere at the Film Forum (209 West Houston; [212] 727-8110) from October 22-28 with a gorgeous new 35mm black & white Scope print. Written and directed by the prolific Kaneto Shindo, who has helmed nearly 50 films since 1951, KURONEKO seems to have been overshadowed by the more famous 1964 Japanese horror classics KWAIDAN and ONIBABA (both screening, by the way, at New York City’s Japan Society; Shindo also directed ONIBABA). So the movie—a Japanese folk tale of ghostly revenge—is ripe for rediscovery.

With David Fincher’s THE SOCIAL NETWORK now a hit in theaters, the time is right to take a look back at his 1995 serial-killer thriller SE7EN. There have been countless films with similar subject matter in the past two decades, but to this day, SE7EN continues to shock with its jaw-dropping ending.

Provocative, grim, shocking and extremely anti-establishment in their outlook, British director Pete Walker’s “terror” films were always controversial—perhaps due to their frequent representation of an unsavory, seedy underbelly of a British society governed by convention and hypocrisy. With his previous movies, notably HOUSE OF WHIPCORD, FRIGHTMARE and HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN (a.k.a. THE CONFESSIONAL), Walker had actively worked to subvert typically British institutions (such as class, family and the legal system) and outrage as many people as he possibly could by presenting cannibalistic pensioners, murderous priests and private prisons controlled by sadistic wardens.