Jigoku (#352, DVD)

Shocking, outrageous, and poetic,Jigoku(Hell, a.k.a.The Sinners of Hell) is the most innovative creation from Nobuo Nakagawa, the father of the Japanese horror film. After a young theology student flees a hit-and-run accident, he is plagued by both his own guilt-ridden conscience and a mysterious, diabolical doppelgnger. But all possible escape routes lead straight to hellliterally. In the gloriously gory final third of the film, Nakagawa offers up his vision of the underworld in a tour de force of torture and degradation. A striking departure from traditional Japanese ghost stories,Jigoku,with its truly eye-popping (and -gouging) imagery, created aftershocks that are still reverberating in contemporary world horror cinema.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Building the Inferno, a new documentary on director Nobuo Nakagawa and the making of the film, featuring exclusive interviews with actor Yoichi Numata, screenwriter Ichiro Miyagawa, Nakagawa collaborators Chiho Katsura and Kensuke Suzuki, and Cure and Doppelganger director Kiyoshi Kurosawa
• Theatrical trailer
• Galleries of posters from selected Nakagawa and Shintoho Studios films
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A new essay by noted Asian-cinema critic Chuck Stephens

  New cover by Lucien S. Y. Yang