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Japanese horror, also known asJ-horror, ishorror fiction derived from popular culture inJapan, generally noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of the horror genre differing from the traditional Western representation of horror.[1] Japanese horror tends to focus onpsychological horror, tension building (suspense), and thesupernatural, particularly involving ghosts (yūrei) andpoltergeists.[2] Other Japanese horror fiction contains themes offolk religion such as possession,exorcism,shamanism,precognition, andyōkai.[2] Media in which the genre of Japanese horror fiction can be found include artwork, theater, literature, film, anime and video games.
The origins of Japanese horror can be traced back to the horror fiction andghost stories of theEdo period and theMeiji period, which were known askaidan (sometimestransliteratedkwaidan; literally meaning "strange story").[3] Elements of these popular folktales have routinely been used in various forms of Japanese horror, especially the traditional stories of ghosts andyōkai.[3] The termyōkai was first used to refer to any supernatural phenomenon and was brought to common use by the Meiji period scholarInoue Enryo.[4]Kaidan stories became popular in Japan during this period after the invention of printing technologies, allowing the spread of the written stories.[5] Earlykaidan stories includeOtogi Boko byAsai Ryoi,Inga Monogatari by Suzuki Shojo, andOtogi Monogatari byOgita Ansei.[5]
Later, the termyōkai evolved to refer to vengeful states thatkami ("gods" or spirits in theShinto religion) would morph into when disrespected or neglected by people living around their shrines.[6] Over time, Shinto Gods were not the only ones able to morph intoyōkai, but this ability to transform came to be applied to all beings who have an untamed energy surrounding them, referred to asMononoke.[7]
Kabuki andNoh, forms of traditional Japanese theater, often depict horror tales of revenge and ghastly appearances.[5] One difference between these two forms of theater is Noh is formal and targeted for upperclassmen while Kabuki is interactive and seen as "the theater of the people."[5] The subject matter often portrayed in original Noh theater includevengeful spirits, demon plays, stories of death, and others.[5] Many of the storylines of these traditional plays have inspired modern horror depictions, and these stories have been used as source material for Japanese horror films.[5] In fact, Kabuki was a major subject of early Japanese films, and Kabuki gradually was woven into the framework of the modern horror films seen today.[5]
Elements of Japanese horror in folk art are represented in the works of 18th century artist,Katsushika Hokusai. He was a painter during the Edo period famous for hisblock prints of Mt Fuji. In the realm of horror fiction, Hokusai produced a series based on a traditional game of telling ghost stories calledA Hundred Horror Stories in which he depicted the apparitions and monsters that were so common in these stories. Only five of the prints are known to have survived, but they represent some of the better-known ghost stories from the folklore of this time period.[8] They include the ghost ofOkiku, a servant girl who is killed and thrown in a well and whose ghost appears limbless rising from a well to torment her killer. The traditional imagery around this particular folktale is thought to have influenced the novelRing. Other images from this collection are of theGhost of Oiwa and the Phantom ofKohada Koheiji. The Oiwa story centers around betrayal and revenge, wherein the devoted wife is killed by her disreputable husband and her ghost appears and torments and tricks him. Her image is of a woman disfigured by the poison her husband used to kill her. The Kohada image is drawn from the story of a murdered actor, whose wife conspires to kill him. Her lover drowns Kohada on a fishing trip and Hokusai represents his decayed and skeletal spirit captured in a fishing net.
After thebombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1945, Japanese horror cinema would mainly consist of vengeful ghosts, radiation mutants, andkaiju (giant irradiated monsters) starting withGodzilla (1954).[9] Thepost-war era is also when the horror genre rose to prominence in Japan.[9] One of the first major Japanese horror films wasOnibaba (1964), directed byKaneto Shindo.[10] The film is categorized as a historical horror drama where a woman and her mother-in-law attempt to survive during a civil war.[10] Like many early Japanese horror films, elements are drawn largely from traditionalKabuki andNoh theater.[9]Onibaba also shows heavy influence fromWorld War II.[9] Shindo himself revealed the make-up used in the unmasking scene was inspired by photos he had seen of mutilated victims of the atomic bombings.[9]Kwaidan (1964), directed byMasaki Kobayashi, is ananthology film comprising four stories, each based upon traditional ghost stories.[10] Similar toOnibaba,Kwaidan weaves elements ofNoh theater into the story.[9] The anthology uses elements of psychological horror rather than jump scare tactics common in Western horror films.[10] Additionally,Kwaidan showcases one commonality seen in various Japanese horror films, that being the recurring imagery of the woman with long, unkempt hair falling over her face.[11] Examples of other films created afterKwaidan weaving this motif into the story areRing (1998),Ju-On: The Curse (2000), andExte (2007). Another notable film worth mentioning isHouse (1977), which is a surreal horror movie about a group of schoolgirls who visit their aunt in the country.
In the 1980s, there was a distinct shift away from gory, slasher-style films of violent spectacle, towards the psychologically thrilling and intensely atmospheric type, led by the director Norio Tsuruta. Tsuruta's 1991 and 1992 film seriesScary True Stories began a categorical shift in these films, which are sometimes abbreviated to "J-horror".[12]
In contemporary Japanese horror films, a dominant feature ishaunted houses and the break-up ofnuclear families.[9] Additionally, monstrous mothers become a major theme, not just in films but in Japanese horror novels as well.[9][13]Kiyoshi Kurosawa's filmSweet Home (1989) provides the basis for the contemporary haunted house film and also served as an inspiration to theResident Evil games. Japanese culture has seen increased focus on family life, where loyalty to superiors has been de-emphasized. From this, any act of dissolving a family was seen as horrifying, making it a topic of particular interest in Japanese horror media.[9]
Ring (1998) was influential in Western cinema and gained cult status in the West. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Hollywood horror had largely been dominated by theslasher sub-genre, which relied on on-screen violence, shock tactics, and gore.Ring, whose release in Japan roughly coincided withThe Blair Witch Project (1999) in the United States, helped to revitalise the genre by taking a more restrained approach to horror, leaving much of the terror to the audience's imagination.[14] The film initiated global interest in Japanese cinema in general and Japanese horror cinema in particular, a renaissance which led to the coining of the termJ-Horror in the West. This "New Asian Horror"[15] resulted in further successful releases, such asJu-On: The Grudge (2002) andDark Water (2002).[16] In addition to Japanese productions, this boom also managed to bring attention to similar films made in other East Asian nations at the same time, such as South Korea (A Tale of Two Sisters) and Hong Kong (The Eye).
Since the early 2000s, several of the more popular Japanese horror films have been remade.Ring (1998) was one of the first to be remade in English asThe Ring (2002), and laterThe Ring Two (2005) (although this sequel bears almost no similarity to the original Japanese sequel). Other notable examples includeThe Grudge (2004),Dark Water (2005), andOne Missed Call (2008).
With the exception ofThe Ring, most English-language remakes of Japanese horror films have received negative reviews (althoughThe Grudge received mixed reviews).[17][18][19]One Missed Call has received the worst reception of all, having earned the Moldy Tomato Award atRotten Tomatoes for garnering a 0% critical approval rating.The Ring 3D wasgreen-lit byParamount in 2010,[20] and later the film was renamed and released asRings (2017).
Many of the original directors who created these Asian horror films have gone on to direct the English-language remakes.[citation needed] For example,Hideo Nakata, director ofRing, directed the remakeThe Ring Two; andTakashi Shimizu, director of the originalJu-On: The Grudge, directed the remakeThe Grudge as well as its sequel,The Grudge 2 (2006).
Several other Asian countries have also remade Japanese horror films. For example,South Korea created their own version of the Japanese horror classicRing, titledThe Ring Virus.
In 2007,Los Angeles–based writer-directorJason Cuadrado released the filmTales from the Dead, a horror film in four parts that Cuadrado filmed in the United States with a cast of Japanese actors speaking their native language.
The first influential Japanese horror films werekaiju monster films, most notably theGodzilla series, which debuted the originalGodzilla in 1954. In 1973,The Monster Times magazine conducted a poll to determine the most popularmovie monster.Godzilla was voted the most popular movie monster, beating theUniversal Studios menagerie ofCount Dracula,King Kong,Wolf Man,The Mummy,Creature From the Black Lagoon, andFrankenstein's monster.[21]
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), a re-edited Americanized version of the originalGodzilla for the North American market, notably inspiredSteven Spielberg when he was a youth. He describedGodzilla as "the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies" because "it made you believe it was really happening."[22]Godzilla has also been cited as an inspiration by filmmakersMartin Scorsese andTim Burton.[23]
There are numerous Japanese works ofzombie fiction. One of the earliest Japanesezombie films with considerable gore and violence wasBattle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay (1991) directed by Kazuo Komizu.[24] However,Battle Girl failed to generate a significant national response at the Japanese box office.[25] It was not until the release of two 1996 Japanese zombie games,Capcom'sResident Evil andSega'sThe House of the Dead, whose success sparked an international craze for zombie media, that many filmmakers began to capitalize on zombie films.[26][24][25] In addition to featuringGeorge A. Romero's classic slow zombies,The House of the Dead also introduced a new type of zombie: the fast-running zombie.[27]
According toKim Newman in the bookNightmare Movies (2011), the "zombie revival began in the Far East" during the late 1990s, largely inspired by two Japanese zombie games released in 1996:Resident Evil, which started theResident Evil video game series, andSega's arcade shooterHouse of the Dead. The success of these two 1996 zombie games inspired a wave of Asian zombie films, such as thezombie comedyBio Zombie (1998) and action filmVersus (2000).[24] The zombie films released afterResident Evil were influenced by zombie video games, which inspired them to dwell more on the action compared to older Romero films.[28]
The zombie revival which began in the Far East eventually went global following the worldwide success of the Japanese zombie gamesResident Evil andThe House of the Dead.[24] They sparked a revival of the zombie genre in popular culture, leading to a renewed global interest in zombie films during the early 2000s.[29] In addition to being adapted intoResident Evil (2002) andHouse of the Dead (2003), the original video games themselves also inspired zombie films such as28 Days Later (2002)[30] andShaun of the Dead (2004),[31] leading to the revival of zombie films during the 2000s.[29][30][32] In 2013, George Romero said it was the video gamesResident Evil andHouse of the Dead "more than anything else" that popularised his zombie concept in early 21st century popular culture.[33][34] The fast-running zombies introduced inThe House of the Dead games also began appearing in zombie films during the 2000s, including theResident Evil andHouse of the Dead films,28 Days Later, andDawn of the Dead (2004).[27]
The low-budget Japanese zombie comedyOne Cut of the Dead (2017) became a sleeper hit in Japan, receiving general acclaim worldwide[35] and making Japanese box office history by earning over a thousand times its budget.[36]
Horrormanga are a modern evolution of serialized stories produced as texts in wood block print form during the Edo period. These graphic novels usually deal in historical tropes of horror that are based on Buddhismrokudo (six realms) and the frightening notion of fluidity, that one can move between these realms unintentionally, like moving between heaven, earth and hell, and non-duality, that the realms are intermingled.
Some popular Japanese horror films are based on thesemanga, includingTomie (1998), based onTomie byJunji Ito;Uzumaki (2000), based onUzumaki byJunji Ito; andPremonition (2004), based onKyōfu Shinbun byJirō Tsunoda.
Examples of horroranime television series includeDeath Note,Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories andBoogiepop Phantom.
Examples of Japanesehorror video games include thesurvival horror franchisesResident Evil,Silent Hill,Corpse Party andFatal Frame; the horroraction gamesGhost House,Castlevania andThe House of the Dead.
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