Chime: how to watch one of 2024’s scariest horror films this Halloween – is it an NFT?

• Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa has released one of the most acclaimed horror films of 2024. 
• Chime has been likened to his most famous works – Cure and Pulse. 
• But it is weirdly hard to find and watch this Halloween. 

It is almost time for Halloween and you might be looking for a scary film to watch this SpookTober. Yet, one of the most acclaimed horror movies of the year is weirdly hard to find. 

Chime, a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, has been hailed among the scariest films released in 2024. But it is not easily available in the usual places – and instead has quite a unique distribution method. 

So how can you watch it this Halloween – and what is it about? Here’s all you need to know: 

Chime is the latest horror effort from legendary Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. However unlike his most famous films – 1997’s Cure and 2001’s Pulse – it is a short movie and has a run time of just 45 minutes, according to iMDB. 

The synopsis for Chime reads: “A school teacher is woken by a sound that fills him with dread.” It has received plenty of acclaim since its release earlier in 2024, being labelled as the ‘best horror movie of the year so far’ in June by Polygon. 

The YouTube channel The Film Loner dubbed it the ‘scariest movie of 2024’. While the website The Film Stage described it as leaving ‘its mark’ despite its short run-time. 

However despite all the acclaim, you probably haven’t heard of Chime and it is a rather convoluted process to actually watch it. 

The acclaimed horror movie was not released in cinemas in the UK – and it is not available on any of the usual streaming platforms. You can’t rent/ buy it digitally from Prime Video or Apple TV. 

Instead, Chime is exclusively available via a Japanese digital video trading platform called Roadstead.io. Now, you likely haven’t heard of this platform – I know I hadn’t until I started to look into Chime. 

You can choose between a range of rental options – from one day to a week long – and the cost is in Yen (the currency of Japan). Prices range from 450yen to 100,000yen (£2.27 approx to £503 approx). 

While, you can also rent a making of documentary – Les Cuisiniers of Chime – and a digital poster. The website uses NFT (non-fungible token) technology to distribute the film. 

It might have been a while since you’ve heard NFT’s mentioned – now the craze for those ugly cartoon monkeys has died down – so you might need a refresher on what exactly they are. 

Let’s start with the term itself: non-fungible token. So, fungibility is an economic term relating to the value of a product or commodity. 

A non-fungible item is unique and cannot be replaced by another item of the same type. For example, a Pokemon card would be non-fungible because each specific card could have a different value – depending on its rarity, condition, and other factors. 

But money on the other hand is fungible – because it is interchangeable. So every single one pound coin is worth exactly the same – £1. 

A NFT is a digital token for a non-fungible item which serves as proof of digital ownership. So if you have an NFT it means that you can prove you are the owner of a specific digital item – i.e. a portrait of a cartoon monkey. 

Would you rent a movie as an NFT? I am tossing up between taking the plunge for the sake of watching Chime. Share your thoughts by emailing me: [email protected].