Norio Tsuruta was born on December 30, 1960, in Tokyo, Japan. He is a film director and screenwriter whose career began in the early 1990s within the Japanese straight-to-video market known as V-Cinema. His early work, particularly the 1991 film Scary True Stories: Ten Haunting Tales from the Japanese Underground, is credited with helping to shift the Japanese horror genre away from graphic violence toward a style of atmospheric tension that later became a hallmark of the J-Horror movement. Tsuruta has subsequently been referred to as the Father of J-Horror for his foundational role in shaping the genre.

While primarily known as a film director, Tsuruta is also an original creator of written works. He is the co-author, alongside writer Midori Sato, of the Horror Collector Japanese horror children's novel series. The series, illustrated by Yon, began publication under Kadokawa Shoten's Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko imprint in June 2015. As of June 2025, 26 volumes of the novel series have been released. The series follows a boy in a red hood who travels from town to town, encountering individuals haunted by urban legends and paranormal activity. Horror Collector has been adapted into other media, including a manga illustrated by Niko Yūki, which was serialized in Media Factory's Monthly Comic Gene magazine from September 2021 to February 2022. An anime television series adaptation of the novels is scheduled to premiere in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Tsuruta has a long history of adapting existing horror manga and stories into films, including directing Kakashi, based on a manga by Junji Ito, and Orochi: Blood, based on a manga by Kazuo Umezu. However, his own original concepts have also been significant. His 2000 film Ring 0: Birthday, a prequel to the renowned Ring series, stands as a major work in his filmography. Other notable directorial credits include the films Premonition and an episode of the American television series Masters of Horror titled Dream Cruise.

A recurring element in Tsuruta's artistic identity is the influence of a personal childhood experience, during which he reportedly saw a ghost, an event he has cited as a primary inspiration for his focus on supernatural horror. His broader body of work, from his early V-Cinema productions to his later films and novel series, demonstrates a consistent commitment to crafting ghost stories and exploring folklore-driven fears. His stated goal for creating the Horror Collector series was to establish a good character within the popular J-Horror genre, similar to iconic figures like Sadako from the Ring films, and to realize a collaboration between J-Horror and anime, two major Japanese cultural exports.