We’re presenting a Kiyoshi Kurosawa double feature of the new restoration of 1998’s Serpent’s Path and his 2024 film Chime!

Serpent’s Path: Straight off Cure (1997), his international breakthrough, Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed two low-budget films using the same basic premise and the same lead actor (Sho Aikawa) to completely different ends. The experiment first resulted in Serpent’s Path (1998, later remade in 2024), a dark gangland thriller with philosophical overtones. Obsessed with avenging his young daughter’s murder, yakuza subordinate Miyashita (Teruyuki Kagawa) recruits Nijima (Aikawa), a brilliant yet strangely detached math teacher, to help carry outcarry out a scheme to kidnap and torture the man allegedly responsible. But the plan goes awry when their target, Otsuki (Yurei Yanagi), fingers another mobster as the mastermind behind Miyashita’s tragedy. As the two partners ascend the yakuza chain of command in search of the true culprit, Miyashita and Nijima follow the cold, calculating logic of revenge, descending into a moral abyss from which they may never surface. 

Chime: A masterclass in escalating dread and shocking violence, Chime reaffirms Kiyoshi Kurosawa as one of modern horror’s most innovative and unpredictable visionaries. During a class, culinary instructor Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka) witnesses the suicide of a young student (Seiichi Kohinata), driven to insanity by what he claims is a chiming sound that controls his mind. Soon, Matsuoka begins hearing it, too, and descends into a mental abyss that warps his perception of reality and gives vent to his darkest impulses. 

Our seaside horror Hallucinations mini series continues with a brand new 4K restoration of the 1961 gem Night Tide!

Night Tide presents a world in which undefined realms float around, blurring boundaries between reality and fantasy. Dennis Hopper is profoundly charming in his portrayal of Johnny, a young sailor who is spellbound by Mora, an enigmatic woman who performs as a mermaid at the Santa Monica Pier carnival.

Set near the water in Santa Monica and Venice Beach, Night Tide dives into the purgatory domain of dreamy love, which is cursed by doomed imagination, like a beautiful nightmare underwater.

Hosted by Polygon’s editor-in-chief Chris Plante, Hallucinations is a monthly event that spotlights movies that challenge our expectations of story, style, and “good taste”. We invite guests to bond over films that change what we expect from the medium, the world, and themselves. So come early, stay late, make friends, and watch something strange, surprising, or just shamelessly sick.