Japanese influence on horror

[Giacomo Calorio]

Thank you for your opinions and helpful informations,
Yes, Shyamalan's movies and followers share with Japanese psycho-horror a 
similar "fantastic" atmosphere, shifting mysteriously from real to unreal and 
leaving characters and audience with a similar sense of uneasiness. Anyway, 
they seem more concerned with a final subversion of the point of view, which 
leaves characters and/or audience confused about what they believed to be an 
obvious one-faced reality (the one of the world described in the movie), 
while Japanese psycho-horror (I mean, the most impressive ones) seem to like 
a more widespread sense of uneasiness, difficult to understand from any point 
of view and impossible to solve.
Anyway, apart from the very heart of Japanese horrors, which is a specific way 
of narrating, directing and editing, I thought that Verbinski's movie would 
have brought at least, on a more superficial side,  an influence on ghastly 
imaginery (though the close up of Samara's ghost's make-up in The Ring is 
quite emblematic of a very different imaginery of the ghastly) and that 
Sadako/Samara's daughters, with long black hair and unnatural movements, 
would have invaded the screens as the did in Asia.

thanks to everybody
giacomo

> It should be noted that Hollywood movies are mostly
> build in a 'pop culture' style, which one of its
> characteristic is clarity or easy to understand and
> fast paced. This can be seen if we compare the
> difference between the Ring and Ringu. As some of the
> Kinejapaners here have wrote in previous mail,  Ringu
> is somewhat more 'misterious' compare to the Ring, who
> comes to the point of being 'explicit' in everything.
> More to that, Ringu requires a more attentive viewing
> since it has a very subtle detail, and of course
> requires more patience because everything come one by
> one, whereas the Ring requires less of the aforesaid.
> That's why i think, it's difficult to change the so
> called 'pop style' that has guaranteed a big income and
> vast moviegoers for Hollywood. What Hollywood ussually
> do is take the necessary element (ussually the main
> idea) and present it in a much simpler and easy to
> enjoy form. Other good example for this is the movie
> 'Insomnia', the European version requires more
> attention and patience.
>
> As for the Grudge, i my self haven't seen the American
> version. But i suspect that the choice of location is
> somehow related to the fact that Sam Raimi is producing
> this. Sam Raimi is very impressed with the original
> Ju-On, so maybe he want to present the movie with color
> as close as possible to the original ones. Well, this
> is not a fact, and maybe someone here can help explain
> the real reason for this (maybe a production reason?).
> Anyway, i believe that the choice to shoot the Grudge
> in its 'homeland' is not related to significant or
> sophisticated reason such as cultural approach, so yes,
> i don't think the Grudge shows 'strong influence' of
> the so called Japanesse psycho-horror. Any other
> thoughts every one ?
>
> P.S: Just a thought, maybe i'm being too far here, but
> Hollywood do came up with Shyamalan (as then continued
> with other films like 'the Others'), whose approach i
> think is very close with 'psycho horror' type, in a
> sense that it plays more with your nerve with the
> unexplainable instead of showing some long nailed
> creature slaugtering people...
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:47:47 +0100, Giacomo Calorio
>
> wrote:
> > Dear Kinejapaners...
> > I'm writing a book about Japanese psycho-horror
>
> movies,
>
> > and I'd be glad to
> > listen your opinions about its influence worldwide in
> > recent years. If Asian
> > production gave birth to many similar productions
>
> after
>
> > Ringu, it seems the
> > same cannot be said about Hollywood yet, apart from
>
> the
>
> > very succesful
> > remakes. I'm wondering whether the cause may be the
> > cultural and religious
> > background Sadako & c. belong to, which is quite far
> > from western one, or if
> > there's any specific social reason, or if it's just a
> > matter of genre
> > tradition, production reasons and audience tastes.
> > That seems connected to the fact that Shimizu's remake
> > of Juon is still set in
> > Japan (I haven't seen the movie yet, I just read about
> > that).
> > Do you think there's been any inflence on Hollywood
> > horrors after Verbinsky's
> > movies? If so, in what?
> >
> > Another question (less serious, though)... I'm looking
> > for the first Ring TV
> > series  (kanzenban), but I couldn't find it at all,
> > while the second one
> > (saishusho) seems quite eaesily findable on ebay.
> >
> > Could anyone help me?
> >
> > thank you very much
> > giacomo
>
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