If you’ve ever fallen down a Junji Ito rabbit hole at 2am, you’ll know that his brand of horror isn’t about cheap jump scares. It’s about dread, the slow kind that crawls under your skin and refuses to leave. Words like ‘bizarre’, ‘grotesque’ and ‘peculiar’ don’t quite cut it, but they get close. Ito’s worlds are populated by cursed beauties who regenerate no matter how many times they’re destroyed, balloon-headed predators dangling nooses, and an entire town spiralling – literally – into obsession and madness.
Thailand is about to step into that nightmare. From October 10 to January 5, MBK Center will host Junji Ito Collection Horror House, an exhibition reimagining the manga legend’s Museum of Terror as a walk-through haunted house. It’s timed neatly for Halloween, though anyone who’s read Uzumaki knows the unease lingers long after the lights come up. Spread across 1,500 square metres, the space promises to collapse the distance between page and reality, pulling fans into Ito’s most notorious stories. Expect to run into Tomie, the immortal siren who leaves ruin in her wake, and Souichi, the creepy nail-chewing prankster who makes Dennis the Menace look like a church boy.
Bangkok isn’t the first to get the treatment. Taiwan hosted the inaugural Horror House in 2023, where more than 100,000 visitors willingly subjected themselves to Ito’s particular brand of torment. The Bangkok edition comes with a budget north of 15 million baht, courtesy of Japan Anime Movie Thailand, Five Star Agency and Muse Communication. Think of it as less comic convention, more interactive descent into chaos.
And then there’s the headline twist: Junji Ito himself is coming. On October 11, the artist will appear in Bangkok to meet fans at a special event at SF Cinema in MBK. For devotees who’ve only known him through ink and nightmares, this is the sort of encounter that feels both thrilling and vaguely cursed – as if seeing the architect of your bad dreams in person might blur the line between fiction and whatever we call the real world.
Tickets aren’t yet on sale, but when they are, it’s safe to assume they’ll vanish quickly. Until then, perhaps it’s worth rereading Tomie or The Hanging Balloons as a warm-up. Not that you’ll ever really be ready.