Great classic Japanese folk horror
 

I'm looking for more movies along the lines of Japanese folk horror films, a genre which I think has produced some of the best films ever made. None of them are scary really, more like elegiac and poetic, but they can be creepy. I find them to be both beautiful and macabre. Some of the greats:

Kwaidan
Portriat of Hell
Ugetsu
Onibaba
Woman in the Dunes
Jigoku
Kuroneko
some segments of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

If you know of any more like these, I would appreciate the mention of those titles. If you haven't seen those and like lyrical stories and gorgeous imagery, you would do yourself a favor in checking those out. In my opinion they are not only some of the high points in horror but of all film drama period.

Kwaidan and Onibaba were very good, and a little sad.

I don't know if this would interest you, because it's animation and not really of the horror genre, but it does focus a lot on Japanese folk beliefs and tales. It's called Mushi-Shi. I found it on Netflix. Like I said, it's not scary, but the imagery is breathtaking and the atmosphere and characters are beautiful.

Looks interesting, but it is certainly more of a modern story than a fable. It does look like something I would enjoy more than most anime, I am going to give it a chance and have added it to my queue. Thanks of the recommend.

One film I watched recently that could almost be classed with these ghost fables is called Empire of Passion. I am hesitant to group it in with these movies though, although it uses conventions of the genre, it has a somewhat different agenda. Like the others it is nicely filmed and has a historical setting and has a haunting, however it is really concerned with sexual obsession and sexual politics. As such, it is more sexually explicit than these other films, which isn't too surprising being the movie that followed In the Realm of the Senses from the same director. Although unlike that film, the sex in Empire of Passion is simulated and not real.

A film you might be interested in is Seventh Moon 2008. Chinese myth has it that on the full moon of the 7th lunar month, the dead have free run for one night. We get to watch a young couple inadvertently get tangled up in a night of horror with a not so happy ending. Its sad and well-done and was apparently filmed during the real "Hungry Ghost" festival.