Kurosawa Kiyoshi and “Ju-on” director Shimizu Takashi are among the seven filmmakers behind “Night Tales Club,” a six-part Japanese supernatural anthology series that will premiere on Disney+ and Hulu in January 2027.
Yamada Takayuki leads the series as Hojo, a high-flying businessman focused on the unexplained who serves as its narrator. Each episode adapts a different story from author Sawamura Ichi’s collection of short horror stories. Sawamura also adapted the material for the screen.
Hojo is convinced that ghosts, curses, and other paranormal phenomena are “bugs” – glitches that point to a hidden conspiracy. To get to the bottom of this, he offers JPY20 million ($126,000) in gold to anyone willing to come to his gathering, the Night Tales Club, and present a first-hand account of the supernatural with proof. Six such episodes make up the series as Hojo pursues the truth behind them.
Kurosawa, whose credits include “Cure” and “Wife of a Spy,” and Shimizu, known for “Ju-on” and “The Inugami Family,” each take one episode. So do Katayama Shinzo (“Gannibal,” “The Human Vapor”), Sode Yukiko (“Aristocrats,” “All the Lovers in the Night”), Sakashita Yuichiro (“I Can’t Cry with Your Face,” “Blonde”) and Nakamura Yosuke (“Higuma!!,” “Poison Girl”). Nakajima Kenji (“The Naked Director,” “Tokyo Swindlers”) directs the hojo scenes.
Wakabayashi Yusuke and Yamamoto Teruhisa produce.
“As the original author of these stories, I feel extremely surprised and delighted that they will soon be available on screens to terrify audiences around the world.” Sawamura said.
The show joins the growing array of Japanese series on the streamer. Disney+ already has “Gannibal,” in which a police officer stumbles upon something sinister in a remote village, and “Land of Tanabata,” about a college student with an apparently wasted power who investigates a murder. Lighter fare includes the cross-cultural romantic comedy “Merry Berry Love” and the comedy variety show “The One Shot.”