Undoubtedly, no other film genre is as provocative and internally exploratory as horror, and in turn, no other country has managed to shake the foundations of viewers as Japan when it comes to showing some of the hottest movies Awesome of the genre.
Takahiro tamura en Empire of passion. Source: SabukaruOnline.
While the terror in the United States has succeeded in developing its own visual storytelling style, producing countless box-office copycat horrors revolving around blood and heartbreak: Saw, The Conjuring: The Purge- All justifiable franchises in their own right, the arrangement generally leans toward easy scares, causing the entertainment value of blood and jump scares to be overly saturated.
This is why it could be argued that the general scope of horror cinema from Japan He has been able to overshadow it by putting quality before marketability and creating works that, while still popular, boast an abundance of art and creative freedom.
And it is that Japanese horror films have the ability to amaze through the absurd and extreme narration, creating worlds that combine the notions of the supernatural with those of internal fears, or humanity's growing dependence on technology.
Mixing these elements with existential anxieties of self-esteem, repressed trauma and cultural doubt regarding the primordial and sporadic nature of humanity, is what has positioned the Japanese country as the true leader of the genre, even inspiring remakes who have achieved a long life in the general collective, such as El Aro, Don't Look Up, Pulse, and Godzilla, Entre otras muchas.
As a nation possibly less disturbed by the nature of violence or monstrous anxieties, due in part to its history with nuclear consequences and the complicated social implications of suicide and mental health, Japanese horror cinema tends to promote stories of shock and Awe that can be as poignant as they are completely unnerving as you explore universal themes like isolation, suicide, social politics, and existential dread alongside zombies, ghosts, and monsters.
Perhaps that is why most Western adaptations of Japanese horror films fail to achieve the same impact as their haunting originals.
Japanese Horror: From Folk Tales to the Big Screen
Japanese horror is deeply ingrained in the folk tales of their culture, similar to the brothers Grimm and other fairy tales are the inspiration for some of the American and European horrors.
These folk tales began as an oral tradition passed down from generation to generation and originated through the Shinto belief system that is indigenous to Japan.
Like most mythologies, these stories were used to reinforce cultural norms and explain the enigmatic in a prescientific era. An example of this are Oni, or invisible demons, which are present in folk tales, and which are said to live among people and possess magical powers to create disease and natural disasters.
Source: Arrow Videos
Interestingly, it wasn't until an Irish folklorist named Lafcadio Hearn began to record these stories during the last decade of the nineteenth century that the Japanese themselves began to take an interest in them beyond the context of children's fables or the occasional stage adaptation.
Fluent in Japanese and one of the first foreigners to integrate into Japanese society, Hearn spent years living in Japan while compiling a series of stories yokai which were published in 1904 as Kwaidan: Stranger Things Studies and Stories.
Aside from a few short films from the early 1960th century that no longer exist, Japanese horror cinema got off to a relatively late start in the mid-XNUMXs in a work directed by Kaneto shindo in 1964, onibaba, which is considered the first film in this genre.
The following year, the director Masaki kobayashi released his horror anthology movie waidan, which presents a selection of stories from the collection of Hearn through a series of four unrelated vignettes. With this installment, Kobayashi, who won the Special Jury Award in the Festival de Cine de Cannes 1965, would become an influential horror director both in Japan as abroad.
Source: Journal Rikumo
Later, movies like House, Empire of passion y Tetsuo: The Iron Man de Shinya Tsukamoto, Among several others, they would become cult masterpieces thanks to their absolutely surreal experience, making them some of those films that invade the senses.
Explore our gallery located at the top of this note to see the posters of some movies that we recommend you to see soon.