The Best Japanese Horror Films of All Time, Part 1
by Dejan
Ognjanovic
HAUNTED
PAST, PSYCHOTIC PRESENT, DYSTOPIAN FUTURE
Japanese
tradition of cinematic terror goes all the way to
the 1920-ies (A PAGE OF MADNESS, 1926). In the following
decades there were several adaptations of classic
ghost stories, but they reached the Western shores
only with Kenji Mizoguchi's UGETSU (1953), winner
of the Silver Lion award at the prestigious Venice
film festival, and the much-praised omnibus KWAIDAN
(1964: see below), winner of the Special Jury Prize
at Cannes. Reaching the Western festivals, and occasional
distribution as well, these and many other titles
showcased the treasures of Japanese folklore filmed
with a lush cinematic style. They were made by well-known
directors and stars, with respectable budgets, and
exemplified high artistic standards at the time when
Western horror was dominated by B-movie quickies of
Roger Corman and Hammer production.
Dedicated for decades to its own folklore, Japan was
fully recognized as a major player on the international
horror scene only in the 1990-ies, when a series of
young and brave directors abandoned costumed period
pieces and embraced horror as a part of everyday,
contemporary reality. Horror was no longer a fairy-tale
like thing from the past: it was recognized as a major
constituent of the current spirit of times. Horror
tropes became essential for expressing the worldview
of the new generation of Japanese directors such as
Shinya Tsukamoto, Kyoshi Kurosawa, Sogo Ishii, Hideo
Nakata, Takashi Miike and others. Their language of
horror was not lost in translation: it was embraced
by the jaded Western fans as a breath of fresh air
(but also as a welcome variation for the money-grabbing
producers yearning for the latest remake idea).
There are three dominant topics found in the majority
of Japanese horrors, exemplified in the very title
of this overview: ghost stories (both period and modern),
psycho killers and bleakly futuristic cyberpunk horrors.
They metaphorically represent a dark worldview in
which the past is seen as a source of terror (usually
merged with guilt), the present is a source of paranoia
in which individuality and meaningful existence are
threatened by a large-scale insanity, while the future
is equally threatening with body mutation, identity
dissolution and technological overkill. These themes
occasionally overlap, and our division cannot be scalpel-precise,
but it should serve the purpose of showing the undercurrents
of the dominant trends in Japanese horror cinema,
and the subtexts beneath the apparently innocuous
genre cinema.
Because of an incredible number of significant titles
dealing with psycho killers, that topic will be divided
into two parts, while the final, fifth part of this
series is devoted to important titles which could
not be forced into any of the three major thematic
divisions. Thus, our selection of the best Japanese
horror films will be presented in five parts:
1. Ghosts
2. Psychos (1): PSYCHO OBSESSION
3. Psychos (2): SERIAL KILLERS
4. Futuristic (cyberpunk) horrors
5. A league of their own
-----------------
1. GHOSTS
Japanese ghosts, naturally, obey the rules of Shinto
beliefs, but in their essence they are not much different
from the Western ones. These apparitions (yurei) are
created when a person dies suddenly and violently
(including a rush suicide), thus leaving a certain
'business' among the living – unfinished. Improper
burial is another common cause of haunting this world
instead of joining the souls of the ancestors. Revenge
remains the main purpose of these ghosts. Much can
be read into the fact that Japanese ghosts tend to
be almost exclusively female. Is it a national guilt
projected and transformed into fear because of the
violently subordinate place women had in the traditional
Japanese society? Is it a way of admitting that the
wronged ones (those most eager to avenge themselves)
tended to be mostly – women? Whatever the case
may be, there are much fewer stories and films about
male ghosts (when they appeared, they were mostly
warriors haunting their last battlefield).
Yurei are usually dressed in a long white robe, actually
a kind of simple kimono (katabira), in which people
were buried in the old days. Portrayed more or less
the same as mortals, they are easier to mistake for
a living person than their Western, transparent counterparts.
Pale face and long black hair are the only hints of
something amiss. According to same later beliefs,
yurei have no legs, which means that they float instead
of walk, but in theatrical or cinematic versions of
ghost stories this detail is usually hidden beneath
the long kimono, or disregarded altogether.
The most prolific Japanese director to deal with the
traditional ghosts was Nobuo Nakagawa, with his classics
THE GHOSTS OF KASANE SWAMP (1957), THE MANSION OF
THE GHOST CAT (1958) and especially THE GHOST STORY
OF YOTSUYA (1959). These titles are, unfortunately,
still hard to find in the West and thus must be omitted,
for the time being, from this selection. The same
goes for a later addition to this sub-genre, Nobuhiko
Obayashi's HOUSE (1977), which rates very highly among
the few Western fortunates who were able to see it.
Having in mind these omissions, the following selection
should be sufficient to cover the best of the best
among Japanese ghostly horrors.
KWAIDAN,
1964
Dir: Masaki Kobayashi
"Black Hair": A poor man abandons his
wife and marries a rich woman. Unhappy with her, he
goes back to his first wife, but realizes a bit too
late that she's no longer alive... "Hoichi, the
Earless": A blind young monk goes every night
to an abandoned graveyard, compelled by the ghosts
of a famous battle to retell their story, over and
over again... "The Snow Maiden": A woodcutter
marries a woman who just happens to be devoted to
wander snowy landscapes, bringing death to mortals.
"In a Cup of Tea": A warrior is menaced
by an elusive spirit first seen in a cup of tea staring
up at him...
One of the first Japanese films to gain wide international
recognition is also a matchless spook-fest of highest
order. This omnibus, based on four ghost stories recorded
by Lafcadio Hearn, showcases the riches of Japanese
folklore, but also the riches of cinematic talent.
As directed by Masaki Kobayashi, KWAIDAN is a painterly
exercise in style, a stunning eye candy whose painted
sets' artificiality only stresses the fairy tale aspects,
never undermining the main effect: chill. Terror and
beauty are merged just like the world of the living
and the world of the (un)dead. Japanese ghosts do
not come from a distinctly separated otherworld (as
they do in the West): they are here, omnipresent,
all the time. That is, if they are wronged, or with
some business left unfinished. The mortal trespasses,
witting or unwitting, are duly punished in all four
parts of this omnibus, and thus they function as morality
tales as well. The first tale is similar to UGETSU,
being an allegory of male desire for wealth at any
cost with a supernatural angle handled with much more
zest for terror than UGETSU (which was not much concerned
with frights and thus cannot be labelled a horror
film). KWAIDAN is one of the most beautiful films
of any nation, period or genre. It is also the grand-daddy
of all Japanese ghost stories, unsurpassed even now,
more than four decades later.
KURONEKO,
aka THE BLACK CAT, 1968
Dir: Kaneto Shindo
A beatufil young woman and her mother-in-law are
raped and killed by a marauding group of samurai.
They come back as ghosts bent on seducing and killing
the hateful warriors. The real trouble starts when
their son and husband comes back home as a samurai.
Will they be able to evade the vow they've made to
the vengeance demons?
From the director of ONIBABA (see part 3 of this
guide) here comes his second-best horror film, with
visuals even more stunning than before (in glorious
black and white). The woods are haunted by the seductive
spectre who has no trouble attracting the weary warriors
to a secluded house for an evening of sake, conversation
and throat-ripping. Beautiful, poetic, but quite gory
as well, this is a wonderful horror film with an intelligent
subtext and a strong moral core (just like ONIBABA).
It condemns an entire caste - not only the samurai
but their rulers as well (shown to be equally contemptible).
At the same time, it presents revenge as a morally
dubious endeavor and deals with complex emotions rarely
found in European and American gothic films of the
time. Just like KWAIDAN and ONIBABA, it has been recently
included in EUREKA'S 'Masters of Cinema' DVD series,
and rightly so!
RING,
1998
Dir: Hideo Nakata
KFCC Review: Click
Here!
A single-mother reporter investigates a series
of mysterious deaths which seem to be connected with
watching a certain video tape. After watching it herself,
she becomes enmeshed in the race with death which
only gets worse when her son watches the tape too.
She has only seven days to save herself and her son,
or else... Sadako will cause some more death-of-fright
face disfigurements...
RING starts with a bang (SCREAM-style) but continues
with a relatively subdued mystery which builds and
builds and BUILDS until it explodes in a virtuoso
double-bang finale. Or make it triple-bang, because
the scenes of emptying the well and Videodrome-Sadako
surprise are followed by the ending whose chilling
implications are rightly presented as apocalyptic
in that great final shot. A masterpiece of suggestion,
RING is everything a great horror needs to be: subtle,
scary, shocking, unobtrusively gruesome, visceral
as much as cerebral and spiritual, convincingly ridiculous
and ridiculously convincing, metaphysical, thought
provoking, imaginative and strikingly memorable. It
burns itself into your psyche never to leave your
(sub)conscious with images which correspond with the
deepest fears of mankind: fear of the dark, of death,
fear of loss of a loved one (especially a child!),
fear of forces surpassing our control and understanding,
fear of gods and demons, lonely places, deep wells,
dark waters... RINGU reminds us that Japan is a tiny
piece of land surrounded by the vicious, mysterious
ocean: this land in itself becomes a metaphor for
our position in the cosmos the way Lovecraft wrote:
'We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst
of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that
we should voyage far.' And Lovecraftian hints are
cleverly present in Sadako's otherworldly origin:
'Frolic in brine, goblins be thine'. Mostly remembered
for its striking set-pieces – especially the
much copied but never surpassed Sadako's emergence
from the TV set – RING is equally masterful
in its quieter moments, like a spooky scene in which
our protagonist 'meets' (sort of) Sadako in broad
daylight, in the park, surrounded by people. Blessed
and cursed by being a trend-setter, RING is not responsible
for dozens of copies or for the fact that all of them
(including an inferior American remake) pale in comparison
to its achievements.
SÉANCE, 2000
Dir: Kyoshi Kurosawa
A young pair abducts a little girl hoping for
ransom. The girl, however, dies. They get rid of the
body, but can they get rid of the spirit?
Made for TV and slightly overshadowed by PULSE, made
a year later, Kurosawa's SÉANCE is a great
example of spook cinema. Inspired by an old British
black comedy, SÉANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON (1964),
it showcases the use of quiet moments, silence and
broad daylight for exposing very dark (but occasionally
darkly comical) aspects of (in)humanity. Restrained,
like most of his other films (if you do not count
his early slasher, GUARD FROM UNDERGROUND), this is
a film that does not so much rely on shocks and jump
scares as it does on the shiver inducing atmosphere
which gets heavier and heavier.
PULSE,
2001
Dir: Kyoshi Kurosawa
KFCC Review: Click
Here!
When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will
walk... the internet? It seems so, after more and
more people are found dead next to their computers.
Even worse, they tend to leave vague black smudges
as only traces of their former existence. And the
situation grows more and more apocalyptic...
A highly idiosyncratic mixture of teen-horror
and art film, PULSE works like a mutant offspring
of Tarkovsky and Cronenberg sprinkled with heavy doses
of RING spookiness. Its horrors are based on the idea
that the real hell would be if not even death could
bring the delivery from empty, pointless existence
– if solitude and emptiness just kept growing
in the afterlife. Kurosawa's point seems to be that
his protagonists are already 'dead' – dead in
life, living virtual lives in the cyberspace. The
second half may be a bit self-indulgent, and any semblance
of coherence is thrown away for the sake of random
uber-scary scenes. Excellent sepia-toned, mute-colored
photography and elaborate sound design and score work
wonders in terms of an oppressive atmosphere of doom
'n' gloom, but one wishes Kurosawa opted for a more
linear narrative and just slightly more coherent ending.
The end, by the way, brings this film very close to
the category of 'bleak futuristic/apocalyptic' horrors,
to be dealt in detail in part 4. of this series.
DARK
WATER, 2002
Dir: Hideo Nakata
KFCC Review: Click
Here!
Another single mother in Nakata's oeuvre, this
time with a small daughter, rents a dilapidated apartment
in an equally gothic building. The growing stain on
the ceiling is only the beginning of much greater
problems of supernatural origin.
Heavy
on atmosphere and drama, low on rhythm and ambition,
Nakata's follow-up to RING does not even attempt to
top it in any regard. Instead, the whole ghost story
is used as a kind of background for a not-too-exciting
drama about mother-daughter relationship. With only
a few characters confined to a single setting DARK
WATER may be too small to merit a feature running
time, and some viewers may feel the running time stretched
a bit. If you do not expect another masterpiece there
is a lot to enjoy in the visuals and elaborate soundscape
(always reliable Kenji Kawai provides adequately brooding
dark ambient score), but the slim story and not too
original denouement prevent this from achieving a
level of 'classic' and confine it to a 'slightly above
average spook-o-rama'.
THE
GRUDGE, 2002
Dir: Takashi Shimizu
KFCC Review: Click
Here!
A series of vaguely connected people come (one
after another) to an unassuming haunted house and
are killed by its ghosts. The end. Actually, to be
continued.
Shimizu
must be the only respectable director who has remade
a film of his more than once (I stress 'respectable'
so as to exclude Jesus Franco and the like). Originated
as a direct-to-video cheapie, it got a video-sequel
(criminally cheating by reprising at least half of
the original film's footage!), a Japanese theatrical
remake (which also got a sequel), and then the American
remake (plus sequel)! There are good things to be
said about both theatrical versions: the Japanese
is fresher and colder, the American is more linear
and easier to follow. They both provide good scares,
undermined only by the fact that there are no developed
characters to root for. Too fragmentary for its own
good, THE GRUDGE is less than the sum of its parts,
more like a cinema equivalent of a carnival 'Ghost
house' ride than a real film with developed story.
ONE
MISSED CALL, 2003
Dir: Takashi Miike
Randomly selected teenagers receive deadly messages
on their cell phones, with their own last words/cries
sent from three days in the future. Can you fight
destiny? Even more importantly, can you afford to
throw away your cell phone?
Unashamedly
derivative, Miike's film is still delightfully quirky
to provide interest and a lot of pleasure from more-than
competently executed scenes of cell-phone terror.
It is organized around set-pieces – who could
forget the train suicide or death in front of TV studio's
cameras? – while the story and characters are
weak and secondary. The resolution of the mystery
is convoluted (and ultimately redundant) while the
final showdown goes so over the top it verges on the
ridiculous. Never boring, but also rarely more than
vaguely intriguing, ONE MISSED CALL is a well-made
scare-fest which proves that Miike can function equally
well within the mainstream production as he does outside
of it.
BOX, 2004
Dir: Takashi Miike
KFCC Review: Click
Here!
A female novelist suffers from memories/nightmares
having to do with her past, or at least a version
of it. She is tormented by dreams/visions of two little
sisters, carnival performers: in the fight over father's
affection one of the girls is killed. The remaining
one keeps dreaming of being buried alive...
Miike's segment in the Asian horror anthology
THREE EXTREMES is (surprisingly! but aren't surprises
his trade mark?) the least extreme of the three. Rather
restrained for his standards, it is a deliberate surreal
mystery whose playing with reality may be confounding
for some viewers, but the visual and atmospheric mastery
in some scenes is the closest that any Japanese director
has come to the beauty of KWAIDAN.
Dejan
Ognjanovic
06/24/2006
