Best movies like Kwaidan

Similar in 80%

Harakiri (1962)

Plot Summary:

Peace in 17th-century Japan causes the Shogunate's breakup of warrior clans, throwing thousands of samurai out of work and into poverty. An honorable end to such fate under the samurai code is ritual suicide, or hara-kiri.

Similar in 88%

An Actor's Revenge (1963)

Plot Summary:

While performing in a touring kabuki troupe, leading female impersonator Yukinojo comes across the three men who drove his parents to suicide twenty years earlier, and plans his revenge, firstly by seducing the daughter of one of them, secondly by ruining them.

Similar in 81%

Onmyoji: The Yin Yang Master (2001)

Plot Summary:

During a dark time in the Heian period, when evil forces threaten the kingdom, the emperor relies on the Onmyoji to keep the supernatural forces in line. But as political events become highly charged, friction within the order leads to betrayal. Now, Seimei (Mansai Nomura), a talented member of the clan, must face down his master, Doson (Hiroyuki Sanada), in the hopes of restoring peace to the kingdom.

Similar in 83%

The Innocents (1961)

Plot Summary:

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Similar in 78%

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)

Plot Summary:

A collection of magical tales based upon the actual dreams of director Akira Kurosawa.

Similar in 82%

The Black Cat (1968)

Plot Summary:

In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.

Similar in 89%

Devil Woman (1964)

Plot Summary:

In medieval times, on a remote plain, a widow and her mother-in-law kill wandering samurai, put their bodies in a hole in the ground and sell their armour and valuables, until the daughter-in-law falls in love with one of their intended victims.

Similar in 76%

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

Plot Summary:

Valerie, a Czechoslovakian teenager living with her grandmother, is blossoming into womanhood, but that transformation proves secondary to the effects she experiences when she puts on a pair of magic earrings. Now seeing the world around her in a different light, Valerie must endure her sexual awakening while attempting to discern reality from fantasy as she encounters lecherous priest Gracian, a vampire-like stranger and otherworldly carnival folk.

Similar in 76%

Chronos (1992)

Plot Summary:

Faced with his own mortality, an ingenious alchemist tried to perfect an invention that would provide him with the key to eternal life. It was called the Cronos device. When he died more than 400 years later, he took the secrets of this remarkable device to the grave with him. Now, an elderly antiques dealer has found the hellish machine hidden in a statue and learns about its incredible powers. The more he uses the device, the younger he becomes...but nothing comes without a price. Life after death is just the beginning as this nerve-shattering thriller unfolds and the fountain of youth turns bloody.

Similar in 86%

Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)

Plot Summary:

While driving, the pregnant horror-movie actress Kyôko Harase and her fiancé are in a car crash caused by the Toshio's friend. Kyôko loses her baby and her fiancé winds up in a coma. Kyôko was cursed together with a television crew when they shot a show in the haunted house where Kayako was brutally murdered by her husband years ago.

Similar in 80%

Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)

Plot Summary:

A mysterious and vengeful spirit marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides.

Similar in 85%

Dark Water (2002)

Plot Summary:

A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.

Similar in 81%

The Twilight Samurai (2002)

Plot Summary:

Seibei Iguchi leads a difficult life as a low ranking samurai at the turn of the nineteenth century. A widower with a meager income, Seibei struggles to take care of his two daughters and senile mother. New prospects seem to open up when the beautiful Tomoe, a childhood friend, comes back into he and his daughters' life, but as the Japanese feudal system unravels, Seibei is still bound by the code of honor of the samurai and by his own sense of social precedence. How can he find a way to do what is best for those he loves?.

Similar in 78%

Don't Look Now (1973)

Plot Summary:

After Laura and John Baxter lose their only child in a horrible drowning, they are greeted by strange sightings of her throughout their everyday lives. When two old ladies approach them in Italy with news that their daughter may still be alive, it seems too good to be true. Perhaps it is.

Similar in 87%

Gothic (1986)

Plot Summary:

The year is 1816. A sprawling villa in Switzerland is the setting for a stormy night of madness. On this night of the "Haunted Summer," five famous friends gather around an ancient skull to conjure up their darkest fears. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Shelley's fiancée Mary Godwin, Mary's stepsister Claire Clairemont and Byron's friend John Polidori spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in a frenzy of shocking lunacy. Horrifying visions invade the castle - realizations of Byron's fear of leeches, Shelley's fear of premature burial, Mary's fear of birthing a stillborn child - all brought forth in a bizarre dreamscape. They share the terrifying fantasies that chase them through the castle that night. The events of that night later inspired Mary Shelley to write the classic "Frankenstein" and Dr. Polidori to pen "The Vampyre," which became the basis for the creation of Dracula.

Similar in 76%

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Plot Summary:

With the disappearance of hack horror writer Sutter Cane, all Hell is breaking loose...literally! Author Cane, it seems, has a knack for description that really brings his evil creepy-crawlies to life. Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End.

Similar in 84%

The Witch (2015)

Plot Summary:

In 1630s New England, William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life with five children, homesteading on the edge of an impassable wilderness, exiled from their settlement when William defies the local church. When their newborn son vanishes and crops mysteriously fail, the family turns on one another.

Similar in 79%

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Plot Summary:

An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.

Similar in 75%

The Uninvited (2009)

Plot Summary:

Anna returns home after spending time in a psychiatric facility following her mother's tragic death and discovers that her mother's former nurse, Rachel, has moved into their house and become engaged to her father. Soon after she learns this shocking news, Anna is visited by her mother's ghost, who warns her that Rachel has evil intentions.

Similar in 78%

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Plot Summary:

Satan-worshiper Prince Prospero invites the local nobility to his castle for protection against an oncoming plague, the Red Death. He orders his guests to attend a masked ball and, amidst an atmosphere of debauchery and depravity, notices the entry of a hooded stranger dressed all in red. Believing the figure to be his master, Satan, Prospero is horrified at the revelation of his true identity.

Similar in 78%

The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)

Plot Summary:

Set in pre- World War II era. A young man is on a strange train to see his dying father in a sanatorium. But the place is going to ruin and recalls a lot of memories from the past. He is beset by soldiers from the past, colonial black mercenaries, girls from his early life, and his parents. It is an interior adventure, with unusual atmospheric flair and extraordinary sets.

Similar in 85%

Eraserhead (1977)

Plot Summary:

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Similar in 78%

The Company of Wolves (1984)

Plot Summary:

An adaptation of Angela Carter's fairy tales. Young Rosaleen dreams of a village in the dark woods, where Granny tells her cautionary tales in which innocent maidens are tempted by wolves who are hairy on the inside. As Rosaleen grows into womanhood, will the wolves come for her too?.

Similar in 89%

Tideland (2005)

Plot Summary:

Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.

Similar in 87%

Audition (1999)

Plot Summary:

Seven years after the death of his wife, company executive Aoyama is invited to sit in on auditions for an actress. Leafing through the resumés in advance, his eye is caught by Yamazaki Asami, a striking young woman with ballet training.

Similar in 82%

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Plot Summary:

A young couple moves into an infamous New York apartment building to start a family. Things become frightening as Rosemary begins to suspect her unborn baby isn't safe around their strange neighbors.

Similar in 77%

Possession (1981)

Plot Summary:

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

Similar in 85%

Spiral (2000)

Plot Summary:

In a small town in Japan, Kirie comes upon her boyfriend's father silently videotaping a snail. Later, the mans obsession with spirals becomes more and more bizarre, ending in his suicide in a washing machine which turn his body into a spiral. Soon other inhabitants become possessed with different forms of spirals.

Similar in 84%

The Shining (1980)

Plot Summary:

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.

Similar in 77%

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Plot Summary:

Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.