As Ring returns to cinemas from today in a 20th-anniversary restoration, we count off the films you need to see…

From The Ring to The Grudge, Japanese horror has definitely crept its way into the American psyche. Themes in Japanese horror often focus more on psychological horror and the low and slow rise of suspense and tension, particularly involving vengeful ghosts and poltergeists. The origins of Japanese horror can be traced to horror and ghost story classics of the Edo period and the Meiji period, which were known as Kaidan, literally “strange stories”, often based on Buddhist parables regarding vengeance for misdeeds.

Just in time for the return of Ring to UK cinemas in a 20th-anniversary restoration, here is our list for the Top 12 Japanese horror films:

Directed by Hideo Nakata. Screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi. Starring Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rikiya Ōtaka, Yoichi Numata. 95 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Later remade into an American film also called The Ring starring Naomi Watts, the original Japanese film, based on a Japanese folk tale involving a spirit in a well, follows TV-reporter and single mother Reiko who is caught up in a series of deaths surrounding a cursed videotape in what may be the first case of a video going “viral.” Reiko strives to protect her son and family, all while mysterious things occur around them, trying to lift the curse before their time is up 7 days after the first viewing of the film. Some very intense buildup of suspense occurs as it all comes to a head at the conclusion of Ring.

Directed by Takashi Shimizu. Screenplay by Takashi Shimizu. Starring Megumi Okina, Misaki Ito, Misa Uehara, Takashi Matsuyama, Yui Ichikawa. 92 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Also remade in the west, The Grudge follows various characters in segments who after entering a haunted house, all begin ending up followed and cursed by the mysterious inhabitants of the house. The scares are rather classic jump sequences, but images, particularly of the mother ghost, are quite memorable.

Directed by Takashi Miike. Screenplay by Daisuke Tengan. Starring Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. 115 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

A widower named Aoyama begins dating again, and his friend, a film producer, devises a special audition to screen girls for him. Asami Yamazaki, a particularly beautiful young woman, catches his eye. There is something about her though that bothers Aoyama, and as he digs into her past, all he can find are clues about previous owners gone missing, and an empty apartment, containing a sack and a phone.

4 – Dark Water (仄暗い水の底から Honogurai Mizu no soko kara), 2002

Directed and Written by Hidea Nakata. Starring Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi. 101 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ring and Ring 2, Dark Water follows a divorced mother who moves into a rundown apartment with her daughter, only to experience supernatural occurrences and a mysterious water leak from the floor above which gets worse and worse over time – and hair that starts appearing in their tap water. This film, a tale of motherly love and sacrifice, was also later remade in the US starring Jennifer Connelly.

5 – Kwaidan (怪談), 1964

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Written by Yôko Mizuki, Based on stories by Lafcadio Hearn. Starring Rentarō Mikuni, Keiko Kishi, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe, Tatsuya Nakadai. 183 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Kaidan, is a 1964 Japanese anthology horror film based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn’s collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, for which it is named. The film consists of four separate and unrelated, but all quite creepy stories titled “The Black Hair”, “The Woman of The Snow”, “Hoichi the Earless”, and “In a Cup of Tea”. The stories are all set in Edo period Japan, a time of samurai swordsmen, and apparently, vengeful wandering spirits. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Directed by Kaneto Shindo. Written by Kaneto Shindo. Starring Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi. 95 min. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Kuroneko is an adaptation of a supernatural folktale set during a civil war in Japan’s Heian period revolving around the spirits of a woman and her daughter-in-law who seek revenge against all samurai after losing their lives to a brutal raping incident. The son/husband of the ghosts just so happened to recently become a samurai and must choose whether to follow his lord or his heart.

Directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Written by Shinya Tsukamoto. Starring Tomorowo Taguchi, Kei Fujiwara, Shinya Tsukamoto. 67 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man has become a cult cyberpunk film about a man with a contagious fetish for metal. A couple happens to accidentally hit and kill the man and he gets his revenge by infecting them with a transformation that slowly turns their bodies into metal.

Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. Written by Chiho Katsura. Starring Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Oba. 88 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

A schoolgirl travels with her six classmates to her ailing aunt’s country home, where they come face to face with strange and supernatural events as the girls are, one by one, devoured by the vengeful home.

9 – Marebito (稀人, Unique One), 2004

Directed by Takashi Shimizu. Written by Takashi Shimizu. Starring Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomomi Miyashita. 92 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

This disturbing Japanese film is about a man named Masuoka, played by Shinya Tsukamoto, obsessed with a suicide he witnesses, eventually finding his way into an underground world below Tokyo filled with blood-sucking DERO creatures. There he becomes involved with a young homeless girl named F, who needs to be fed blood to survive.

10 – Infection (感染 Kansen), 2004

Directed by Masayuki Ochiai. Screenplay by Masayuki Ochiai. Starring Kōichi Satō, Masanobu Takashima. 98 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

At a hospital, an infection breaks out among doctors and nurses that makes people bleed green goo from their eyes and ears, eventually becoming liquefied into green goo.

11- One Missed Call (着信アリ Chakushin ari), 2003

Directed by Takashi Miike. Screenplay by Minako Daira. Starring Kou Shibasaki, Shinichi Tsutsumi, Kazue Fukiishi, Anna Nagata, Renji Ishibashi. 112 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

The plot revolves around a group of students who begin getting a strange voice message on their cell phone with their death date two days in the future. As the friends begin to die off, one by one, a vengeful ghost begins to reveal itself as the culprit.

12 – Onibaba (鬼婆, literally Demon Hag), 1964

Directed by Kaneto Shindo. Written by Kaneto Shindo. Starring Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satō. 103 minutes. In Japanese with English Subtitles.

In the midst of war-torn medieval Japan, a woman and her young daughter in law kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. Set in a stunning marshy grass field which seems alive at times, the elder woman begins harbouring jealousy when she finds out her son has died and the neighbour begins to seduce the young daughter in law. She kills a samurai, taking his grotesque mask, and begins donning it to scare the girl back from the edge of immorality, but the mask itself has other plans for the woman.

Ring is in Cinemas from 1st March 2019, and on Digital, DVD, Blu-ray, Limited Edition Steelbook, and Limited Edition Collection featuring Ring, Ring 2, Ring 0 & Spiral 18th March 2019.