We have learned the sad news this weekend that Japanese writer Koji Suzuki, who created the Ring franchise back in the early 1990s, has passed away in Tokyo at the age of 68.

The story of Sadako/Samara all began in 1991 with Koji Suzuki’s Japanese novel Ring, which formed the basis for Hideo Nakata’s 1998 film and soon thereafter the Gore Verbinski-directed American remake in 2002. The one two-punch of terrifying films about a little girl emerging from a well spawned a wave of Japanese horror films that overtook America in their wake.

One of those movies that helped define the “J-horror” movement was Dark Water, first a Japanese horror movie in 2002 and later an American movie in 2005. Much like Ring a few years prior, the Japanese version of Dark Water was directed by Hideo Nakata, but both films were based on a 1996 short story penned by, you guessed it, Ring creator Koji Suzuki.

These are just a small handful of horror movies based on the works of Koji Suzuki, with his body of work inspiring films including Spiral, The Ring Virus, Ring 2, Ring O: Birthday, The Ring Two, Open Water 2: Adrift, Sadako 3D, Sadako vs. Kayako, and Rings. Suzuki’s tale Dream Cruise also became the 13th and final episode of Showtime’s “Masters of Horror” series.

Koji Suzuki was indeed a master of horror in every sense, his nightmares helping to define an entire era of horror that terrified audiences throughout the late 1990s and 2000s. It’s hard to imagine the landscape of the genre without films like The Ring, Dark Water, and the films that were directly inspired by them, and none of that would’ve happened without Koji Suzuki.

There’s a reason Koji Suzuki was known as “the Stephen King of Japan.” Like King, Suzuki’s work will endure and inspire for many, many generations to come. All of us here at Bloody Disgusting send our deepest condolences to Suzuki’s family, friends, and many fans.