Saturday, March 26, 2011

Japanese Horror

I think that Japanese horror is the best kind of horror, and is why all the American movies that we see are basically replicates of them. The themes of hair, sounds, and the overall mood of the movies are very appealing in the sense of preeminent fear. I believe since we as Americans have such a different culture than the Japanese, the movies we watch are much different weird movie with many odd characters such as the guy who kept popping up out of nowhere. I like how the movie focused on something we see in everyday of our lives such as a spiral and how something simple can turn into an obsession where people fear it. Pulse also portrayed many themes of horror that we fear such as the ghosts and darkness. I personally remember going to see the American version in theaters and was freaked out, and was even more scared during the Japanese version.

2 comments:

  1. I agree that Japanese horror is very different from American horror films in many ways. Not sure which I prefer as I'm not really a fan of horror in general, but I can appreciate the mystery of Japanese horror which seems to leave much to the imagination of the audience to decipher. Also, the terror is much more real if it comes from normal every day objects and situations rather than the elaborate and unrealistic plots portrayed in many American horror films which make the 'horror' almost laughable. In comparing the American and Japanese versions of Pulse, I noticed much of the fear generated from the Japanese version was simply the psychological fear of the unknown rather than gruesome visual scenes depicting the murders as more vividly depicted in the American version.

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  2. I am also a fan of Japanese horror. Uzumaki did not produce any great feelings of fear or anxiety for me, but I liked many other things about it. The mood of the movie is very gloomy, particularly with murky weather and setting. This is similar to the mood of The Ring and The Grudge. These two movies produced much more fear and anxiety for me, especially The Ring. Uzumaki also featured an aspect of comedy, with silly camera angles and facial expressions by the characters. I was not expecting to see this type of a film; I was expecting something more like The Ring and The Grudge. I was not quite sure what the spiral was supposed to signify until we had our discussion in class. I can now see how it is all about obsession. I like Japanese horror because it gives more of a psychological ride for the audience.

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