A group of sinners involved in interconnected tales of murder, revenge, deceit and adultery all meet at the Gates of Hell.
Direction
Nakagawa's hell sequences invented J-horror's visual language decades early.
Practical Effects
Pre-CGI torture tableaux that still make audiences squirm.
Cinematography
Expressionist shadows and garish hell-colors in gorgeous 2.35:1 scope.
Director
Nobuo Nakagawa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Nakagawa filmed the hell sequences in an abandoned ammonia factory, using leftover industrial chemicals for the eerie colored smokes.
The film adapts specific torments from the Jūō-kyō sutra, making it essentially a visual encyclopedia of Buddhist hell imagery rarely seen in cinema.
JP
