The X from Outer Space
When a crew of scientists returns from Mars with a sample of the space spores that contaminated their ship, they inadvertently bring about a nightmarish earth invasion. After one of the spores is analyzed in a lab, it escapes, eventually growing into an enormous, rampaging beaked beast. An intergalactic monster movie from longtime Shochiku stable director Kazui Nihonmatsu, The X from Outer Space was the first in the studios short but memorable cycle of horror pictures.

Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell
After an airplane is forced to crash-land in a remote area, its passengers find themselves face-to-face with an alien force that wants to possess them body and soul--and perhaps take over the entire human race. Filled with creatively repulsive effects--including a very invasive bloblike life-formHajime Satos Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is a pulpy, apocalyptic gross-out.

The Living Skeleton
In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighters violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelgašnger thrillers, and mad- scientist movies, Hiroshi Matsunos The Living Skeleton is a wild and eerie work, with beautiful widescreen, black-and-white cinematography.

Genocide
The insects are taking over in this nasty piece of disaster horror directed by Kazui Nihonmatsu. A group of military personnel transporting a hydrogen bomb are left to figure out how and why swarms of killer bugs took down their plane; the answer is more deliriously nihilisticand convolutedthan you could imagine. Also known as War of the Insects, Genocide enacts a cracked doomsday scenario like no other.

Following years of a certain radioactive beasts domination at the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating, if short-lived, dives into that fiendish deep end was the one by Shochiku, a studio better known for elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens--including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. Shochikus outrageous and oozy horror period shows a studio leaping into the unknown, even if only for one brief, bloody moment.