JAPANESE HORROR FILM REVIEWS
One might ask what is so special about Japanese horror movies, as Japan’s input into global culture is now strongly associated with animation, fashion, and toys. However, the names of the horror films listed below are so widely known that a specific tendency becomes almost apparent. Let’s read on and try to figure out what makes Japanese horror movies so special.
1) Battle Royale (2000)
Battle Royale is a classic. However, it is one of the rare Japanese movies that created an impact in the West and was also critically acclaimed. Instead of cramming intensely as all typical school students do, these boys and girls are special. They are delivered to an almost deserted island where they dig into the atmosphere of distrust to each other and consequent paranoia to be killed by their mates. What hits hard about this movie is the philosophical depth of the dialogues between the teens. Such things as fear of the future and cruelty of adult life occupy students’ minds. Oddly, this makes them indistinguishable (almost) from normal students.
2) Ju-On: The Grudge (2003)
This installment is rightfully considered one of the scariest pieces of Japanese cinematography, and we at Write My Essay Online totally agree. Apart from the ingenious plot holding suspense efficiently from the very beginning, this story hits the spot with its ’˜endlessness’ trope. In other words, typical horror movies in which the action revolves around people killed in a particular place by a frenzied spirit require the protagonist to escape from the danger area to survive. However, this one is much crueler. Not only does the protagonists’ escape not set them free but it leads to an even more implacable chase and chain of deaths which stretch out in both space and time.
3) Dark Water (2002)
This one cannot be considered a classic horror. At least it is not what the majority of viewers expect when the plot unfolds, as they find themselves exposed to a life a woman amid the divorce process. She is fighting for full custody over her daughter and struggling to prove that she is capable of taking care of everything at the same time. The relationship between the mother and daughter is heart-stirring. They continue supporting each other when some creepy things happen in an apartment they have just moved in (wink; wink). It is a movie with a generous amount of touching parent-child moments which make the viewer emotionally involved (read: devastated) by the time everything ends.
4) Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)
WARNING! The sensitive audience should never ever even google this movie. The mere plot-description gives creeps, though not because of the atrocities that happen on screen but because of the attitude of Tetsuo, which leads to the actual horror. They say the scariest things are those which can come true. While men, fortunately, do not turn into walking bunches of metal usually, some of them indeed hate women. The issue of misogyny has been pressing for centuries already, and a movie like that will make even a psychologically stable person shake from the implied meanings of the story. It is fair to mention that Tetsuo is an experimental movie, which exploits horror only partially among other genres.
5) Audition (1999)
This movie is delusive. Starting as a smart rom-com with a touch of drama, it suddenly changes the flow direction and turns into full-fledged horror. In a nutshell: a widower’s heart is ready to bloom with love again, but he struggles to find an appropriate partner. Following a friend’s brilliant advice, he sets up an audition to choose from several women and even manages to find the one. However, as their relationship evolves, the friend grows wary of her persona. It is a well-directed horror movie, which had me on the edge of the seat the whole time.
Do you have any guess so far? All those movies are old. They were filmed without fancy computer technology, from which follows that story itself should be shocking for the audience to remember it. One should appeal to people’s emotions and symbolic meanings of things to thrill the audience.