A group of teenage friends are found dead, their faces twisted in terror. Reiko, a journalist and the aunt of one of the victims, sets out to investigate. In the process, she uncovers an urban legend about a cursed videotape, the contents of which causes anyone who views it to die within a week.

Inaugurating the explosion of “J-horror” exports at the turn of the millennium, this wild—and wildly successful—chiller sounded the arrival of one of the most fertile scenes in modern horror cinema. Once seen, never forgotten: Hideo Nakata’s cursed-video classic is the definitive Japanese scarefest.