The Exorcist Archive

Japanese Box Art – Horror Movies

We continue our look at Japanese box art with a group of horror movies. Asia as a whole knows how to scare the heck out of me with their horror stories, so I wonder how Japan dressed up the boxes of some of my favorite American horror movies.

Warning: there are disturbing images on some of these.

A Nightmare on Elm Street


Ah jeez, they went straight for the gross-out stuff – bugs in your mouth, tongues in your phone, and a guy on fire. Looks like they were going for shock value with this cover.

The Exorcist


This VHS was released in 1979. I saw more recent Japanese releases of The Exorcist with much creepier things on the covers, specifically a big red image of Regan staring menacingly at the camera. It’s interesting how this back cover is so tame. All that text is apparently explaining the history of how the movie came to be made.

The Silence of the Lambs


The LaserDisc edition of this one goes right for the jugular. I’m shocked that they decided to feature some of the more gruesome scenes in the movie here. And that huge red photo of the death’s head moth over Hannibal’s mouth is something I haven’t seen on English releases of the movie. It’s really evocative.