There's something very unsettling about Japanese horror that sets it apart from Western horror. For one thing, a lot of popular Japanese horror like The Ring for example, take place in a comfort zone for most people - in front of the TV at home. I find the idea that a creepy girl can crawl out of my TV when I watched an unmarked video far more scary than a bunch of stupid teenagers getting lost in the country and spending the night in haunted house. It's much more subtle with only a faint hint of creative gore. Fear is mainly based on imagery. As opposed to most Western horror where the threat is "That big scary monster is going to eat me!", the threat in Japanese horror seems to be "What is that, it shouldn't be there AND IT'S LOOKING AT ME."
Speaking of looking, I've noticed that deformed eyes seem to be staple imagery for Japanese horror, possibly playing on the fear of being watched. Paranoia, claustrophobia, death, myth and the supernatural are played on without ever coming across as blatant.
See Sadako's giant eye at the end? SHE'S WATCHING YOU. Oh, and if you watched that, you'd going to die next week. Sorry.
Another thing I like about Japanese horror is that it fully embraces modern technology. As mentioned before, The Ring features a television. More recently I have found works that use the internet as a portal for the paranormal. I'm sure there's a name for this genre and I'd love to find out what it is.
Hmm... it's really hard to explain what it is I like about Japanese horror. I'm not expert on the subject really. So without further convoluted explanations, I present to you my findings of superb Japanese horror.
WARNING: This video seriously frightened me when I first watched it, so be careful.
"User: 666"
On first watching, this appears to be a screencapture of a glitch on Youtube.com. By typing in the link to a user called "666" and refreshing the page over and over, the Youtube site eventually turns red and takes on the appearance of rotting flesh. Eventually, a single Youtube account appears with several surreal, bizarre video clips on it. The user suddenly realises that they cannot stop watching the video or turn off their computer.
Spoiler Alert!!:
This is obviously not real - it is the creation of an artist at this site. She used a clever combination of photoshop and an animation program.
I think this video works well because people tend to hate when their computer does unpredictable things. Combined with the supernatural element of, er, Satan, this video is enough to make any geek tremble in their boots. Like, not only is my computer going to crash, but i'm going to DIE as well. Great! The comfort zone thing I mentioned before comes into play again. Most people tend to muck around on Youtube as a relaxing thing. It would be the last place you'd expect to have the pants scared off you.
Tanasinn
"Don't think. Feel and you'll be tanasinn."
This is a website made up of gibberish and Shift_JIS (the Japanese version of ASCII code) images. Some of these images are fairly innocent, such as cartoon characters, animals and children. Some are more sinister, like aforementioned cartoon characters being mutilated, and featureless faces with beady, staring eyes. I can't remember which page it was on, but I do remember seeing an image of a girl hanging from a noose. This page really sums up the tanasinn experience - you can view the images with the sound of a distorted voice speaking with strange electronic noises.
Apparently it started as a project on the imageboard 2ch. There's an imageboard on the tanasinn site where people post strange photos. According to Wikipedia, tanasinn is not clearly explained, but it seems to be an effort to display surrealism and provoke a sense of fear and anxiousness.
Yume Nikki
This is a game that was created using the program RPGmaker by Kikiyama. You play as a young, mentally disturbed little girl named Madotsuki and you can explore her dreams. The landscapes her dreams take place in are vast and almost endless, full of bizarre creatures and imagery. Most of the game is just very strange, but there are some parts which I found to be quite disturbing.
Disturbing bit #1: UBOA
The beginning of this video is mainly of a fellow making Madotsuki walk in and out of a room. Apparently you have to do this many times to see Uboa. So skip to about 6:45 ARGH WHAT THE HELL IS THAT FACE THING. Keep watching - he ends up in another extremely creepy place where there are huge black, smiling ghosts with five arms vomiting blood everywhere. Eek.
Disturbing bit #2: Freaky red thing
Skip to about 1:15. Phallic monsters with eyes are watching you! Then she sees a dead body (Jesus, what a messed-up child) and suddenly OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT. Again, this really plays on the whole "something is watching you" thing (well, it does have three eyes) and the fact that it shouldn't be there. Actually, there are a lot of "that shouldn't be there" moments in this game. What on earth happened to this girl to make her mind conjure up so much frightening stuff in her dreams? Little girls don't usually think about things like dead bodies and monsters gushing blood everywhere.
Or perhaps we should ask, where did the maker of this game conjure up this bizarre imagery?
You can download the game here(needs WinRAR to open). Alternatively, you can watch the most important moments on LoudMan01's Youtube channel.
That's all I have for now. I apologise if you're slightly disturbed now. To cheer you up, here's a picture of Sadako from The Ring, bursting out from an Eeepc.
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1 comment:
shitting bricks indeed. I've got to admit - most of the links didnt work for me, as my internet works at a snails pace, but some of those "this page cannot be accessed" pages were pretty frightening...but more annoying. I will try again on a faster, uni computer. I guess I should be prepared for a few more odd stares than usual. Oh, and by the way - very impressed by earlier Birmingham comment post. Ok...more jealous than impressed.
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