Asian Horror Night

About the event

Beware the Haunted School Toilets! Asian Night of Horror Is Coming!

Here is an event destined to send chills down your spine just before the festival frenzy kicks off! This year, during the ever-terrifying Asian Horror Night, we’ll be transported to the dark corridors of a haunted Japanese school. You’ll gaze into the empty eyes of pupils practising unsettling gymnastic routines, look over your shoulder in fear of a threat straight out of classic J-horror, and discover a comic take on the curse of a broken heart. We invite you to Muranów on 31 October to experience three different facets of horror cinema (terrifyingly so)! The event will also take place on the same day at Kino Pałacowe in Poznań!

For several years now, we have been witnessing a new wave of J-horror that harks back to the genre’s golden age in Japanese cinema. In the 1990s and early 2000s, horror became a barometer of social unrest: it reflected fears of technology, economic crisis, the breakdown of social bonds and an uncertain future. Today, young filmmakers are employing similar strategies, creating films rooted in tradition yet thoroughly contemporary. The films we have selected for the Asian Horror Night programme, which have been screened at leading genre film festivals around the world, are uncompromising, inventive and original. They demonstrate that Japanese horror continues to find new ways to get under our skin – and stay there.

See you there – and here’s to the scariest of times!

Asian Horror Night

Saturday, 31 October, 20:00
Kino Muranów in Warsaw

Ticket price: PLN 100

The ticket includes an evening of three films and refreshments.

Programme

Asian Horror Night in Poznań

Kino Pałacowe, 31 October

This year, the horrors of Japanese schools will also seep into Poznań, where Asian Horror Night will take place for the first time. At Kino Pałacowe, the same set of three films will be screened. A ticket for a single screening costs PLN 30, while a pass for all three films costs PLN 75.

Ticket sales for the Asian Horror Night in Poznań will start on 30 September!

More information

New Group

dir. Yūta Shimotsu
Japan 2025, 82’

In Yūta Shimotsu’s contemporary Japan, society is gripped by a wave of unease, political sentiments are becoming increasingly radicalised, and successive groups of people are succumbing to collective hysteria. At a certain school, too, the situation spirals out of control: pupils form strange gymnastic formations, submitting to a terrifying collective rhythm. Only a handful manage to retain their sanity – among them is Ai, who refuses to be consumed by the prevailing madness. “New Group” is a deeply unsettling horror – intense, hysterical and disturbingly funny. The director shatters the everyday school routine with absurdity, physicality and violence, creating a ruthless satire of Japanese groupism and a society in which the individual can all too easily disappear into the crowd.  

The Invisible Half

dir. Masaki Nishiyama
Japan 2025, 106'

Elena, a teenage girl of mixed British and Japanese heritage, is still searching for her own identity. Her background meant that she was bullied at her previous school. That is why she steps into her new classroom with trepidation, even though here the target of her peers’ aggression is Nyan – hiding in a corner behind a curtain of black hair, perpetually staring at her smartphone with earphones pressed into her ears. When Elena accidentally comes into possession of Nyan’s phone, she discovers the reason behind the girl’s behaviour and finds herself in mortal danger. A curse carried by technology is the theme that made Japan the capital of global horror three decades ago. Masaki Nishiyama proves that it is still possible to approach this theme with fresh eyes, and his film leads to surprisingly mature reflections on Japanese society.  

Mag Mag

dir. Yuriyan Retriever
Japan 2025, 112’

An apparition of a woman in a pink outfit lies at the heart of a new urban legend: if you do not return her love, you can be sure that her kiss will be your last. This is how Yuriyan Retriever, a Japanese stand-up comedian making her feature-film debut, plays with romantic themes in horror, confining this bloody tale of revenge within the walls of a school. Beneath the surface of this genre-bending game, however, lies a personal motivation: revenge for unrequited love, which, in Retriever’s vision, takes the form of a kiss of death. You’ll remember it for a long time! There is horror, absurdity and a ruthless satisfaction in meting out justice to those who break hearts. Because while school romances usually end with a declaration of love, the ones in “Mag Mag” end much worse. Smooch, smooch!