Contemporary Japanese Horror Films

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how horror movies work by playing play on humankind's worst fear - the fear of the unknown, whether it's the supernatural unknown realm, or just the reality of the every day way in which we encounter hundreds of different "unknown" people. In particular, it looks at how in a technologically advanced country such as Japan, the idea of artificial reality created by technology is a major threat. The paper does this through an analysis of such films as Kurosawa Kiyoshi's "Kyua" and Shimizu Takashi's series of films entitled "Ju-on".

From the Paper:

"In addition to this idea of artificial reality created by technology that I mentioned earlier, the fears of the Japanese public were furthered by the increasing violence seen in the 1990's, particularly the acts of Aum and "Sh nen A". Aum, a religious cult headed by Asahara Shoko, was responsible for the saran gas attacks in the Tokyo subway system in March of 1995. "Sh nen A", on the other hand, was a young high school student who in 1997 murdered several younger students, beheading them and taunting the police with notes left in his victims' mouths. Suddenly the public's attention was brought to the perpetrators of these heinous acts: no longer were horrible crimes exclusive to criminals, the insane, or the sociopath. The members of Aum were for the most part young, intelligent, university educated people from stable, wealthy families (Metraux, p. 1149). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Arai, Andrea G. 2000. The "Wild Child" of 1990s Japan, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 99: 4, Fall.
• Carroll, Noel 1987. The Nature of Horror, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 46: 1.
• Gergen, Kenneth 1971. The Concept of Self, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc.,
• Iida, Yumiko 2000. Between the Technique of Living an Endless Routine and the Madness of Absolute Degree Zero: Japanese Identity and the Crisis of Modernity in the 1990s. Positions, 8:2.
• Kawin, Bruce 1985. The Mummy's Pool. Film Theory and Criticism, Cohen, Marshall, and Mast, Gerald, ed., New York: Oxford University Press.

More papers on Contemporary Japanese Horror Films:

• Persuasive Essay # 146253 : "Women in Horror Films"
• Essay # 46619 : "Horror Films"
• Analytical Essay # 113755 : "Horror Films"

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