J-Horror: Special Halloween Edition
Despite all the crappy Hollywood remakes of Japanese horror movies, the Horror Fan
has a lot to gain from seeing the original films. Since, Halloween is approaching as
I write this, I decided to put together a look at Japanese horror and how I got
involved.
First, a little about me. I grew up in Port Tampa and one of my sisters’ boyfriends
gave me a collection of horror film books when I was only five. I would go off by
myself, just to look at the pictures of Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Godzilla,
and an odd assortment of psychotics and weirdoes while I waited to see Dr. Paul
Bearer on Creature Feature at 2pm. I was hooked and I have pretty much stayed hooked
ever since.
The next big phase of horror fandom came when my parents bought a VCR at a garage
sale in the early 80’s and the seller threw in a box of tapes to go with it. One
Saturday, around age 8, I decided to sit and watch random tapes. The first one I saw
was Lucio Fulci’s The Gates of Hell and I loved the scene where the woman vomits up
her intestines. It didn’t bother me at all when other 8-year olds would probably
have run out of the room crying. I also remember the scene with the boyfriend
getting drilled in the ear by an irate father which taught me a valuable lesson
about what not to do when going on future dates.
There were other movies by Fulci like The Beyond and House by the Cemetery and those
films shaped my early knowledge of Italian Horror films.
Also, in the box was Deep Red by Dario Argento, which I watched the same day I saw
The Gates of Hell. Both movies affected me but they didn’t bother me or give me any
nightmares. I thought they were funny.
By the time I got to Japan to study Japanese, I already had a steady diet of
Creature Feature, Shock Theater, and countless Italian horror movies.
I had also seen Ringu (The Ring) drama series thanks to my Japanese roommate in
college. His family would mail him videotapes as they aired on Japanese TV.
I have noticed a shift in Horror entertainment from Italian Horror to Japanese
Horror from the late 90’s to early 2000’s. Argento was on the way out as Miike
Takashi was shocking Japanese audiences with direct-to-video releases. Miike had to
make a name for himself first in that market, before he made movies for theatrical
release.
When Audition came out in 1999, it had a similar effect on movie-goers that Suspiria
did in 1977. Aiudition helped by promoting the extreme graphic torture genre and
influenced future films such as Eli Roth’s Hostel.
To see how this change came about and how Miike came to be highly-regarded begins
with early examples of Japanese Horror movies.
In 1953, Mizoguchi Kenji directed his masterpiece, Ugetsu Monogatari, based on short
stories by Ueda Akinari and Guy de Maupassant. Ugetsu Monogatari is a beautifully
filmed Art House movie that is a classic example of the ghost story.
It has gone on to win critical acclaim from Sight and Sound and numerous film
critics view it in a positive light.
Next, several short stories were adapted from Lafcadio Hearn for Kwaidan, another
film in the ghost story genre. Hearn was interested in Japanese fairy tales, while
living in Japan, and Kwaidan has a fairy tale thread that runs in and out of several
of the short films.
Onibaba, 1964, is a Buddhist Horror story about what happens when a woman and her
daughter-in-law, kill a samurai in order to sell his amour and the fate of such
actions. Onibaba is a moral tale like Tales from the Crypt and Hammer Horror films.
Demons and ghosts haunt the two women for desecrating the dead.
Moving ahead to the 90’s, Shikoku, 1999, is an interesting psychological ghost story
set in rural Japan that shows a Buddhist’s vision of Hell at the end. It stars
Kuriyama Chiaki as (the wicked killing Japanese schoolgirl, Go-Go, from Kill Bill)
as a yurei (type of Japanese ghost) haunting her childhood friend.
The biggest film series to have a major impact on Japan and a US remake, is The Ring
series directed by Nakata Hideo and based on a Suzuki Koji (the Stephen King of
Japan) novel. The Ring is about the cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches
it in a week. The scene of the creepy woman climbing out of the well is one of the
best scenes of Horror in recent years.
When I was in Osaka, in 1999, Ringu was everywhere from videotapes, books, posters,
and even a highly popular amusement park ride.
OK, before this drags on too long and I could write a book about Japanese horror, a
look at 2000s. Tokyo Gore Police, Tokyo Zombie, and Cursed all contributed to the
crazy world of Japanese horror with even more graphic violence and gore that keeps
pushing the envelope and knocking movie-lovers out of their nice safe comfort zones.
Japanese Horror is still going strong and several sequels and new Hollywood remakes
are scheduled for the next few years which prove its influence and appeal to a wider
international audience.
Check out some of the above-mentioned J-Horror films in the next two weeks and see
how scary the Far East can be.
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