What happened with Japanese horror?
It seemed like not too long-ago that Japan
was the country that was giving us some of
the most interesting, provocative and deliriously
uncanny horror movies of the late 90s and
early 2000s
Before I even heard of the term J-horror or
Asian Extreme, my adolescent curiosity was
captivated by their exotic allure because
like many others, it felt like these movies
where offering something different we weren't
getting from the American horror movies of
the time.
Things were not easily explained, endings
where left ambiguous and the atmosphere had
this distinct way of creating a lasting sense
of dread.
But these days, we don't hear much about them
anymore.
I find myself being more interested in the
next Korean thriller or horror movie.
So, what exactly happened to the J-horror
boom?
How did it just fizzle out?
Well to answer that we must go beyond that
limiting marketing term and explore Japanese
horror cinema as a whole.
In today's video we will be analysing the
recurring patterns of what made and makes
Japanese horror films feel so different.
I should preface that this is indeed an outsider
perspective, but we tried to make this into
an (as mush as possible) informed outsider
perspective.
Also, there are no spoilers in this essay,
so I invite you to enjoy it without needing
any prior knowledge of the movies mentioned.
Stay for the end to get information on our
new Cosmic Horror T-shirt Launch!
Now back to the show.
Perhaps these days it's a tired aesthetic
but when we think of a white dressed girl
with long black hair covering a demonic glare
we effortlessly associated it to Japanese
horror, it's a testament to the cross-cultural
impact of movies like Ju-on, Ring or Dark
Water (just to name a few) but this aesthetic
wasn't born out of the J-horror boom.
It can be traced back the 17th century Kaidan
kabuki theater plays or even further back
to the 14th century Shunen and Shura-mono
ghost plays of the Noh theater.
These tales grew from old folktales of onryo
(vengeful spirits), past down through oral
history.
The term Kaidan means ghost stories and is
still used when referring to movies with a
supernatural bent.
An interesting point of cultural difference
is that in the West, when we refer to horror
movies, it is a broad term that accepts all
kinds of subgenres from slashers to science
fiction horrors, but apparently in Japan,
a "horror movie" is usually associated to
supernatural ghost stories.
Another difference is that they release their
horror movies in the summer around the Obon
or Bon festival to give a chill down the backs
of the audience as a relief from the heat.
The festival is seen as a family reunion for
the living and the departed.
Ancestors come back to earth and roam around
with their families and then eventually leave.
An indication of the different relationship
the Japanese have with the dead.
Spirits of all kinds existing along with the
living.
A contrast we can find in the Western approach
to ghost stories.
Usually in a supernatural movie, we spend
the first act with the main character either
coming to terms with the supernatural element
(with great difficulty) or spending a lot
of effort convincing the other characters
of the spectral presence.
A very noticeable detail with Kaidan stories
is that the vengeful spirit is predominantly
a woman.
From the demon cats in the theatrical Kuroneko,
the ghosts in the elaborate folk anthology
Kwaidan, the evil aunt in the acid trip House,
to Sadako and Kayako in the modern Ring and
Ju-On.
They are all about women that have been wronged
and return as spirits to enact their revenge.
In Kuroneko a mother and daughter are raped
and killed by a group of samurai, they then
bait and murder all of the men, one by one,
to fulfill their beyond the grave vendetta.
In the short story "Black Hair" from Kwaidan,
a samurai deserts his wife to ascend socially
but he then returns out of regret and is greeted
(unbeknownst to him) by his wife's ghost frightening
him almost to death for leaving her.
In House the main character's aunt turned
into malevolent ghost feeding unsuspecting
visitors to her haunted house as retribution
for the death of her lover during the war.
There are simply way too many examples of
female onryo to even bring up which speaks
to an important cultural undercurrent.
It's posited that:
"[...] through their vengeance, they simultaneously
balance the scales of a perceived sense of
justice, evoke fears of social change or the
return of a 'monstrous past' and expose the
inequities inherent within a largely patriarchal
culture."
Framing women as:
"[...] symbolically dangerous ... as well
as the source of all that is Japanese' [...]"
These fantastical representations of women
are characteristic of their transforming role
in contemporary Japanese culture and how it
can be perceived as new, non-traditional or
even other.
This social anxiety has even branched off
into another trope where the supernatural
aspect is removed but the vengeful woman is
still in full display.
Like in the brutal Audition.
We follow the widowed main character Aoyama
trying to find a wife by running auditions
for a fake movie and he falls in love with
the traditional looking Asami.
For the most part the movie follows an almost
romantic comedy trajectory and even lulls
you into a false sense of security with its
motion-less and bland presentation, but it
then devolves into a frenetic uncertain nightmare.
It's a movie that uses the male perspective
and toys around with its fears.
Is Asami a sadistic evil woman or are we witnessing
the manifestation of the main character's
paranoia?
The director:
"Miike himself keeps suggesting that ambiguities
result from shifts between Aoyama's and Asami's
subjective point of view; that in a manner
of speaking, the film goes from 'he said'
to 'she said' "
The vengeful woman (human or otherwise) is
a recurring motif that will continue shifting
narratively.
In Japanese horror we see many examples of
corporeal destruction and transformation.
The body is presented as something malleable
that can become grotesque or other.
Tortured and dissected... so, what is this
about?
After the 1960's there was a distancing from
the traditional representations of the old
folktale ghost stories.
We can see a growing interest in the movies
of the West...
especially their violence.
This coincides with the changing economical
and social environment in Japan.
"[...] one cannot underestimate the impact
of such crucial events as Japan's catastrophic
defeat in the Second World War (and the subsequent
years of foreign occupation), the decades
of dramatic economic recovery and the similarly
spectacular financial recession of the 1990s
upon both the national psyche and consequently,
artistic creations that inevitably emerged"
Even the Japanese film industry was in a bind,
the once strong juggernaut the gave us Akira
Kurosawa and Ozu was struggling.
There was a shift to direct to home video
releases in the 80s.
These changing times where giving birth to
uncertain outlooks of the future.
After the 90s burst bubble economy, we see
a rise of cyberpunk movies with a nihilistic
and even mean-spirited view of the things
to come.
Worlds with gratuitous extreme acts of violence
and even more representations of dark male
fantasies against the female body.
But this violence does not come out of no
where.
It feels like an evolution of the extreme
theatrics that could be found in the Kabuki
plays.
"Kabuki is a highly stylized form: it is 'an
unrealistic art; it is an art of bold outlines
' in which its distinctiveness 'consists not
in making the real look real, but in making
the unreal look real [...]"
"[...] Kabuki has a heightened register in
which technically straight forward narratives
are embellished with the uncanny"
This theatrical violence is magnified ten-fold
in its cinematic creations.
A notable example being that of Tetsuo: The
Iron man.
A monochrome surreal body horror experience
of a salary man turning into a twisted amalgamation
of flesh and metal.
Finding himself physically, mentally and sexually
confused by his growing change.
A visual metaphor of the transforming identity
of the nation, reassessing its global standing,
relationship with technology and gender roles
during the uncertainty of the post-industrial
era.
Japan is a nation of deepening contrast, pulling
itself in opposite sides, simultaneously preserving
tradition and striving for technological advancement.
An ancient shrine can be a stone's throw away
from an advanced skyscraper.
This is not just an external superficial contrast
but an internal individual one as well.
A repressed conflict manifesting into fantastical
corruptions of the human body.
If a nation is finding itself, then the individual
would be as well.
Another recurring motif is the power and gratuitous
proliferation of curses.
A curse can be seen as something that is ever-patient
and tied to a place with no expiration like
in Ju-on.
The movie is told through separate vignettes
of characters that have entered a house where
a horrific family murder occurred.
Regardless of how or when they came in contact
with the house, they are all cursed by Kayako's
vengeful spirit until they meet their end.
It displays the indiscriminate and futile
nature of curses.
In Western movies we see characters spending
most of the runtime trying to find ways to
beat the evil entity searching for a solution.
Finding the right incantation, burning the
right remains.
In Japanese movies, when a curse hits you,
it's not about beating it it's about trying
to survive it... although the deck is usually
stacked against the characters.
Sometimes there is no real explanation as
to why you are cursed... you where just at
the wrong place or around the wrong person.
Its like an illness you are not quite sure
how you got it but now you must live with
the consequences.
And like an illness it is equally contagious...
as we can denote in various Japanese movies:
In Cure, a detective is investigating a growing
number of cases where normal law-abiding citizens
are killing people, that are close to them
by carving an "X" on their throats.
The nameless antagonist is instigating this
by simply asking rudimentary questions.
In Pulse, suicides and disappearance are rising
due to other worldly spectral encounters spreading
through the internet.
In Noroi, a paranormal investigator is trying
to find answers to the mounting deaths surrounding
people that came close to a mysterious demon
called Kagutaba.
But the best example is Ring.
A return to the Kaidan traditional imagery
in a modern-day setting.
The well know story of Sadako's curse spreading
via VHS tape, once you watch it you die in
seven days unless you make a copy and pass
the curse to someone else.
It is interesting to note that Japanese culture
is one that expects everyone to be moving
in the same direction.
So, the fact that you willingly must infect
someone else to save yourself really goes
against that notion.
There is obviously an underlying layer of
technophobia to some of these stories, but
it also speaks to a certain fear of an invisible
contagion that can propagate and infect the
individual until it exponentially reaches
the whole collective.
Perhaps signaling a fear of losing their cultural
unity or a reference to a lingering trauma
of an unseen threat they can't mitigate.
The irony here is that Ring's influence grew
much like a (benign) virus and spread internationally
at just the right time.
Japan was moving away from their violent and
gory past using the growing pool of talent
that was forming in the direct to video market
called "V-Cinema" that was experimenting with
suspense instead of violence.
Stories of spirits mixed with current urban
legends.
Ring was born out of this amalgamation and
was instrumental to the boom.
The original and adapted version of Ring found
fertile ground in the US that was experiencing
an identity crisis of their own.
Stuck in the cycle of horror sequels that
started in the 80s and the meta self-aware
horror movies of the 90s.
Ring was such a welcomed change that the US
started buying the rights for new hit Japanese
horror movies and then Japanese filmmakers
followed suit, churning out Ring-like movies
fast knowing they would be bought off by Hollywood
in bulk.
Although, the mechanism proved to be unsustainable
because the audience started to get tired
of these types of movies and consequently,
less outlets were able to sell the product.
The boom eventually fizzled out before reaching
the 2010's.
These days, the US has managed to find its
footing, and Japan is still producing horror
movies (although with less international attention),
but their biggest franchises are stuck in
a cycle of repetition entering the end of
their genre phases by reaching self-parody.
The original filmmakers that started the boom
still make movies, but some can feel derivative
of their past work or focusing on what is
more in demand like anime or manga adaptations.
Internationally, they have been overshadowed
by the constant rise of South Korean horror
and thrillers.
As we have seen, horror is a manifestation
of social anxieties and some of the most culturally
idiosyncratic can turn out to be the most
profound.
What happened with Ring (and its following
copies) is like what happened to Godzilla.
They started out as metaphors of fears.
Godzilla was the very traumatic fear of nuclear
war...of not being in control, that something
horrible can happen at any time without you
knowing it.
A fear that parallels that of the viral curse.
But then the metaphor changes.
Godzilla is no longer a symbol of fear but
of a nation and then through repetition...
the meaning gets lost...until it becomes decorative.
In the end: "Monsters are our children [...]"
"They ask us to re-evaluate our cultural assumptions
about race, gender, sexuality, our perceptions
of difference, our tolerance towards its expression.
They ask us why we have created them."
Every culture has monsters they have manifested
and influenced into existence.
If the monsters we are making are not resonating,
then perhaps we are not exploring the right
ones.
Thank you for watching our very condescend
look at Japanese horror.
Now, this a video that we really wanted to
make since the beginning of our channel, but
it required a lot of reading and a lot of
preparation to be able to make it
If you are interested in knowing more than
I encourage you to follow all the links and resources
that we used to get all the information.
We also want to take the time to announce
our new limited release T-shirt launch of
our most popular video: Cosmic Horror
It's the same cool minimalist line art design
from our last t-shirts,
To get one all you have to do is follow the
Bonfire link in the description and select
the color you prefer.
We have it in Ice Blue, Light Pink and Banana
Cream.
They will then compile all the orders for
a period of two weeks and then ship them out!
The Cosmic Horror t-shirts offer will only
last for two weeks, so get them while you
still can!
Although, the Slogan t-shirt is also being
relaunched for all of those who couldn't get
it last time!
Thank you very much for your ongoing support!
I hope you really like that t-shirts!
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And finally, today's eerie music was made
by Eduardo Gonzalez.
If you like his work, then definitely check
out his information down in the description.
Until next ti---
