The SpiralMovies like The Spiral
- Key Features:
- Supernatural horror, Japanese horror, Physician, Investigation, Curse, Human spirit, Revenge, Mystery, Death, Grief
- Tone:
- suspense-driven, serious
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Fans of Japanese horror, Viewers interested in supernatural mysteries, Those who enjoy suspenseful thrillers
- Emotional Arc:
- Curiosity → Dread → Terror
The Spiral

A young pathologist seeks answers to the mysterious death of a friend and soon comes into contact with the same cursed videotape that caused the death of the friend's wife and son, which is haunted by the curse of Sadako, a relentless spirit.
The Spiral
A psychologist connects her missing brother to the strange case of a mysterious little girl believed to be Sadako reincarnated.

While investigating the horrifying death of her boyfriend, Mai Takano learns about a videotape haunted by the spirit of a disturbing girl named Sadako, which kills anyone who watches it exactly one week later. When her boyfriend’s son, Yoichi, starts to develop the same psychic abilities as Sadako, Takano must find a way to keep the boy and herself from becoming the next victims.

Working in the shadow of an esteemed police veteran, brash Detective Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks and his rookie partner take charge of a grisly investigation into murders that are eerily reminiscent of the city’s gruesome past. Unwittingly entrapped in a deepening mystery, Zeke finds himself at the center of the killer’s morbid game.

The inhabitants of a small Japanese town become increasingly obsessed with and tormented by spirals.

Akane is a high school teacher who hears a rumor from her students that there is actual footage on the Internet of someone's suicide. The footage is said to drive anyone who sees it to also commit suicide. Akane does not believe the rumor at first, but when one of her female students dies after viewing the footage, she and her boyfriend Takanori are fatefully drawn into the horror that has been created by the man who appears in the suicide footage, Kashiwada. Kashiwada's intention is to create chaos in the world by bringing back Sadako and the power of her curse. Now Akane has to fight against Sadako and Kashiwada to save the lives of herself and Takanori.

After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.

Five years have passed since the events of Sadako 3D. Akane is pregnant with a child with her boyfriend Takenori. However, Akane dies after giving birth to her daughter. When Takenori's sister Fuko takes up the task of caring for Akane's daughter, the infamous cursed video resurfaces. During her investigation, Fuko learns about the legend of Sadako's daughter...

When a social worker is sent to check on a traumatized elderly woman whose family have moved in at the site of a notorious murder case, she unwittingly unleashes a cycle of terror that transmits via its victims.

A girl, Yūri Kurahashi, after watching a cursed videotape together with her friend in a haunted house, becomes trapped in a conflict between the two murderous ghosts: Sadako Yamamura and Kayako Saeki

A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.

An American nurse living and working in Tokyo is exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse, one that locks a person in a powerful rage before claiming their life and spreading to another victim.

In different parts of Tokyo, four young and seemingly healthy people suddenly die of heart failure at exactly the same moment. Reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa decides to investigate the deaths, and discovers that the four had stayed at a rural inn together just a week earlier. At the inn, he comes across a strange video that ends with a message saying that anyone who watches it will die exactly seven days later. Now the clock is ticking for Asakawa. Can he break the curse in time?

After a young mother murders her family in her own house, a detective attempts to investigate the mysterious case, only to discover that the house is cursed by a vengeful ghost. Now targeted by the demonic spirits, the detective must do anything to protect herself and her family from harm.

Nursing student Asuka has just moved into an apartment complex with her parents and younger brother. On the first night in her new room, she is awoken by a strange scratching sound coming from the apartment of her neighbor, a reclusive old man who has refused all attempts at communication. Concerned over his well being, Asuka enters his home only to find him dead from malnutrition. Worse, it looks as if he had been trying to claw his way into her room. Asuka learns that there have been a number of strange deaths in the complex over the years from Shinobu, the handyman cleaning up the old man’s apartment. Even the girls at school whisper rumors of it being haunted.

A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

Medical student Ted Grey graduates at the top of his class and quickly joins an elite pathology program, whose top students invite him into their circle. There he uncovers a gruesome secret: They play a game in which one tries to commit the perfect, undetectable murder, then the others compete to determine the victim's cause of death.

In Tokyo, Japan, several grotesque murders take place on rainy days. Detective Sawamura, who is in charge of the case, soon discovers that his own family is connected to the crimes.

An unnamed doctor has always had everything he's ever wanted, but that has only made him develop more extreme and depraved needs. He kidnaps a young couple in the prime of their life together and forces them into a game of torment that slowly extinguishes their hopes for survival.

A man brutally murders a married couple and leaves the word “ikari” (“rage”) written with their blood. The killer undergoes plastic surgery and flees. At three different locations in Japan, a male stranger appears. People suspect that the stranger might be the murderer.

A Japanese restaurant cook/owner dies after answering his daughter's cellphone. Other people are getting strange, same ringtone calls as well and dying painfully. It happened in Taiwan as well. Can the police stop it if it's a ghost?

Taking place thirty years before the events of Ringu, Ringu 0 provides the shocking background story of how the girl on the video became a deadly, vengeful spirit.

Three years after his sister's death, Yak relentlessly searches for the dark spirit that killed her in hopes of seeking revenge.

A cardiologist tries to pinpoint the cause of her mother's sudden death, while her sister, a witness, claims malevolent demons are at play.

A woman’s body disappears mysteriously from the morgue without a trace. Police inspector Jaime Peña investigates the strange occurrence with the help of Álex Ulloa, the widower of the missing woman.

Three female idols appear on a television show to investigate an exorcism. An exorcist with psychic powers named Unsui claims that the show’s subjects, the Kaneda family, are cursed by a demon that’s too powerful for him to banish on his own, so he calls in a fellow exorcist to help. Soon, a reckless ghost hunter enters the fray as the three idols witness a series of terrifying events.

A detective investigates a series of murders. A possible serial killer might be on a rampage, since they all are in the same vicinity and by the same method, but as the evidence points toward the detective as the prime suspect, a ghost in red follows him, and he begins to question his identity. His realization of what seems to have really happened results in something much more sinister and larger in scope, and it leaves his psyche scarred.

Legend holds that 30 years ago, a suburban town was terrorized by the spirit of a woman whose horrid face had been grotesquely disfigured. Roaming the streets wearing a long coat and carrying large scissors, the spirit would approach her young victims and, while removing the mask, ask if she was pretty. The victim’s response would almost always lead to their violent death.

Six high schoolers stuck in a murderous time loop must find the scattered remains of an unknown victim to break the curse and finally see another day.

Devastated at the death of her four-year-old daughter, a grieving middle school teacher is horrified to discover that her students aren't as innocent as she thinks.

When the cast and crew of a paranormal TV reality program decide to shoot in the house of the original Saeki hauntings, a series of strange events unfold at the location.

Unable to process the death of his daughter, Detective Boyd embarks on a hunt for a serial killer who murders according to a brutal tribal ritual: Muti. The only person who can help Boyd is Professor Mackles, an anthropologist who hides an unspeakable secret. The line between sanity and madness thins as Boyd goes deeper into the killer’s world.

Koji Shiraishi interviews the survivors of an indiscriminate attack at a sightseeing resort and starts investigating the strange events that have been happening to them.

A girl who lost her father to a serial killer, a detective and a killer are intertwined in a chaotic relationship and are met with an unprecedented series of events.

A psychiatrist tries to put her life back together after a violent attack by seeking to repair the life of a new patient, but he has his own terrifying history.

A documentary filmmaker explores seemingly unrelated paranormal incidents connected by the legend of an ancient demon.

A newly married couple discovers disturbing, ghostly images in photographs they develop after a tragic accident. Fearing the manifestations may be connected, they investigate and learn that some mysteries are better left unsolved.

Jake Kimble, the sole survivor of the Chicago massacre, is killed while in solitary confinement. His doctor begins investigating the claims he made about a long-haired woman in white, as a mysterious Japanese woman arrives at his old apartment building to help them get rid of the curse.

A young pathology med student suspects that the spirit of a dead cadaver in the hospital morgue where she works is killing off all those who handle or desecrate the body.

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.

Seven years after the death of his wife, widower Shigeharu seeks advice on how to find a new wife from a colleague. Taking advantage of their position as a film company, they stage an audition. Interviewing a series of women, Shigeharu is enchanted by the quiet Asami. But soon things take a twisted turn as Asami isn’t what she seems to be.

Infection takes place in a dark, isolated hospital, where one doctors mistake has led to dire consequences for a patient. In a hospital death is just a breath away.

An archaeological team attempt to unlock the secrets of a lost pyramid only to find themselves hunted by an insidious creature.

A reclusive telemarketer has only one semblance of a friend: His telecommuter boss. But the telemarketer's social circle seems to improve greatly when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. Only, as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing "voices" from the phone man's past threaten to lead him into a network of destruction.

A Japanese actress begins having strange visions and experiences after landing a role in a horror film about a real-life murder spree that took place over forty years ago.

When Dr. Pieter Fales' patients start receiving ominous letters and getting murdered by an unknown black-clad assailant, he and his daughter both come under suspicion.

A psychotic executive triggers a journalist's dark side, and they begin to form a strange bond through the internet.

A female psychologist wants to understand the minds of a confessed serial killer who spent the last five years in a mental hospital because of his state.

People mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, in the form of the sound of them reacting to their own violent deaths, along with the exact date and time of their future death, listed on the message log. The plot thickens as the surviving characters pursue the answers to this mystery which could save their lives.

When 54 high school girls throw themselves in front of a subway train it appears to be only the beginning of a string of suicides around the country. Detective Kuroda tries to find the answer to this mystery, which isn't as simple as he had hoped.

Dr. Alan Feinstone has everything: a beautiful wife and a successful career in dentistry. However, when he discovers his wife's affair, he realizes that behind every clean, white surface lies the stench of decay.

Ichiko works as a private nurse for a family she almost became a part of. While Ichiko cares for the grandmother, she is also a confidant to Motoko, the eldest sister. But one day, Motoko’s younger sister disappears. And the media soon reveal the kidnapper to be Ichiko’s own nephew.

Forensic pathologist Kang is assigned to examine the dismembered corpse of a female murder victim. Detective Min points to a fanatic environmentalist, Lee Sung-ho, as the primary suspect. But when Kang’s daughter is kidnapped, a manipulative game begins between Kang and Lee, who holds secrets about the homicide case.

A same-sex couple move to a small town so they can enjoy a better quality of life and raise their 16 year-old daughter with the best social values. But nothing is as it seems in their picturesque neighbourhood. And when Malik sees the folks next door throwing a very strange party, something very shocking has got to give.

Veteran detective Cham works with rookie cop Will to hunt down the city's serial killer. The investigation leads them to a lair littered with dismembered female limbs, and an ex-con who killed Cham's wife and child years ago...

Neurosurgeon Koichi uses an experimental technique to enter the brain of his beloved Atsumi, who is in a coma after attempting suicide. In his quest, Koichi drifts steadily further into the sweltering marshes of the spirit. It is soon no longer clear what is real and what is not.

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

A doctor dealing with the aftermath of his son's death tries to help a troubled young man.

Facing goodbyes and graduation, Naomi Nakashima, her childhood friend Satoshi Mochida, and their classmates, are clearing up after their last ever cultural festival, when horror buff class representative Ayumi Shinozaki decides to perform Sachiko Ever After so they will stay friends forever. Instead, they were whisked away to a haunted graduation ceremony for Heavenly Host Elementary School, forced to close after a series of gruesome murders. What fate awaits Naomi and her friends at the cursed school...?

A stranger arrives in a little village and soon after a mysterious sickness starts spreading. A policeman is drawn into the incident and is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

Medical student Paula wins a place at an exclusive Heidelberg medical school. When the body of a young man she met on the train turns up on her dissection table, she begins to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death.

An aspiring hair dresser becomes the infatuation of a tricophilic man who sells hair extensions to nearby hair salons. The source of the hair is the corpse of a girl whose dead body continues to grow beautiful, voluminous, black hair that comes alive, driving those who use the extensions insane or killing them.

Joanna Mills has a successful career but feels her personal life is spinning out of control. She has few friends, an estranged father, and a crazy ex-boyfriend who is stalking her. Joanna begins having terrifying visions of a woman's murder, and it seems that she is the killer's next target. Determined to solve the mystery and escape her apparent fate, Joanna follows her visions to the victim's hometown and finds that some secrets just do not stay buried.

On his request, the sensitive sister of a real estate agent visits a house he intends to put up for sale, only to cross paths with its resident curse.

Bent on revenge, a traumatized ex-police officer must infiltrate a yakuza organization by befriending one of the group's most unhinged members.

An apparitions of a young schoolgirl in a yellow rain hat, a family massacre, and a law student's suicide after he fails his bar exam are linked by the ominous recordings discovered on an audio cassette.

A group of boys and girls, twelve in total, gather at an abandoned hospital to die for various different reasons. There, they find the body of a dead boy. The group of twelve attempt to find the person who killed the boy. During their search, the reasons why they want to die are revealed.

When elementary school teacher Kobayashi investigates the absence of one of his young pupils from the classroom, he finds himself at the doorstep of an anonymous suburban house that harbours a horrible secret, and into which all who enter are doomed.

A businessman kills his adulterous wife and is sent to prison. After his release, he opens a barbershop and meets new people, talking to almost no one except for an eel he befriended while in prison.

In future Tokyo, a young woman in the privatized police force tracks down her father's killer while battling against mutant rebels known as engineers.

Rose, a desperate mother takes her adopted daughter, Sharon, to the town of Silent Hill in an attempt to cure her of her ailment. After a violent car crash, Sharon disappears and Rose begins a desperate search to get her back. She descends into the center of the twisted reality of a town's terrible secret. Pursued by grotesquely deformed creatures and townspeople stuck in permanent purgatory, Rose begins to uncover the truth behind the apocalyptic disaster that burned the town 30 years earlier.

A psychotic killer is on the prowl, who continues to slaughter young women while an innocent man is wrongly accused and sentenced for crimes he could never have committed. A determined detective arrives on the scene and soon becomes obsessed with the case while under pressure from the prosecutor to see a man hang.

Rachel Keller is a journalist investigating a videotape that may have killed four teenagers. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video... and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the Ring so she can save herself and her son.

Ran’s secret past revealed! Ten years ago, something happened between her mom and dad. Now, plagued by nightmares, Ran is starting to remember… Meanwhile, a murderous card dealer breaks out of jail to seek revenge. His target: Ran’s father. Can Conan stop him in time and save his girlfriend’s family?

At a Thai hospital, a doctor and his seven nubile nurses engage in the sale of dead bodies. Jealousy causes one of the nurses to threaten to blow the whistle on the practice, so the others murder her. Soon the spirit of the slain nurse seeks revenge. In flashbacks we see the events leading up to the murder, and realize the full range of relationships between the main characters.

The supernatural grudge manifests itself by way of a strange cyst growing in the body of a young woman, slowly draining all life from her in revenge for... what?

Otsuya, the daughter of a rich merchant, elopes with her lover Shinsuke, an employee of her father's. During their flight, Otsuya's beauty attracts the gaze of Seikichi, a mysterious master tattooist who sees her pristine white skin as the perfect canvas for his art. The image of the large demonic spider that he emblazons across Otsuya's back marks her as the property of another man, radically altering her relationships with all around her as her personality seems to transform under its influence.

A young woman encounters a malevolent supernatural force while searching for her missing sister in Tokyo, a mean high school prank goes horribly wrong, and strange things begin happening in a Chicago apartment building.

The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it's up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.

A doctor finds himself in the middle of an unsolved serial murder case after discovering a secret from a sedated patient. When dismembered bodies show up close to home, he must solve the riddle before the killer realizes what he knows.

After an outburst at school involving her son, a concerned single mother demands answers, triggering a sequence of deepening suspicion and turmoil.

Two detectives are tasked to investigate the murder of an old man, found bludgeoned to death in a Tokyo rail yard.

A male corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi attempts to corroborate the victim’s ex-wife’s alibi she discovers the mysterious neighbor and only a few small clues to help her disprove a seemingly "airtight" alibi...

After inadvertently unleashing an ancient curse, a documentary crew of American exchange students is haunted by angry spirits in Japan's infamous Suicide Forest.

The upper torso of a female, claws her way around Japan searching for her lower half. The person's lower half was severed in a train accident in Hokkaido. Anyone that hears of this story will see Teke-Teke's upper half walking aimlessly around the countryside within three days.

By a strange twist of fate, dutiful Hong Kong policeman Dan saves the life of the leader of a violent gang of armed robbers. When they commit another crime, Dan is determined to put an end to their activities. He works with the leader, whom the gang had betrayed, to engineer a plan to wreak havoc within the gang and let the gangsters kill one another. But it becomes increasingly obvious to Dan and to his colleagues that Dan is suffering from a severe mental disorder, and Dan finds that instead of upholding the law as a righteous police officer, he has now become a fugitive wanted for murder.

One day a mysterious box arrived and a curse began to spread all over. The source of the box is 'Jukai Village'. The village is hidden in Jukai Forest, a suicide spot that once you enter it, you can never come out.

Two priests, one in crisis with his faith and the other confronting a turbulent past, must overcome their differences to perform a risky exorcism.

A private detective is drawn into a complex murder mystery when he is hired to track down a missing young woman.

July 1998 - After a group of delinquents is found dead in their hangout place with all their limbs twisted and torn off, Aozaki Touko receives a request to find the murderer and asks Shiki for help. The main suspect is Asagami Fujino; a girl who was the boys' plaything until recently, who Shiki believes to be "one of her kind".

An upper-middle-class couple's life is destroyed when their only child is kidnapped and killed. Obsessed with revenge, the couple seizes an opportunity to kidnap the killer.

Madison is paralyzed by shocking visions of grisly murders, and her torment worsens as she discovers that these waking dreams are in fact terrifying realities with a mysterious tie to her past.

In the middle of a routine patrol, officer Daniel Carter happens upon a blood-soaked figure limping down a deserted stretch of road. He rushes the young man to a nearby rural hospital staffed by a skeleton crew, only to discover that patients and personnel are transforming into something inhuman. As the horror intensifies, Carter leads the other survivors on a hellish voyage into the subterranean depths of the hospital in a desperate bid to end the nightmare before it's too late.

When a number of suicide victims slash themselves in their sleep, detective Keiko Kirishima is called to investigate.

When Kanako, a model daughter and a brilliant student, disappears, her mother asks her ex-husband, a violent former policeman, to find her. As his investigation progresses, his idealized image of Kanako cracks: the girl hides a dark life that her father can not even imagine.

Tells the story of the samurai Gengobe, who seeks revenge after falling prey to the schemes of a geisha and her husband.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

After going to extremes to cover up an accident, a corrupt cop's life spirals out of control when he starts receiving threats from a mysterious witness.

