Japanese Horror Research

Japanese filmmakers first started making horrors set in the classical Edo Period (1603 to 1867 - when Japanese society was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional Daimyo. The period was characterized by economic growth, strict social order, isolationist foreign policies, environmental protection policies, and popular enjoyment of arts and culture ) in the 1950s.

These types of films often focus on a tale of morality or revenge, with an influence of distrust in technology and the aftermath of atomic bombs.

Japanese Horror has become popular in Western society, with remakes being created of Japanese films such as The Ring (リング). The Ring  is a 1998 film, was released in America. In The Ring, a news reporter named Asakawa discovers the story of a cursed video tape. According to the rumor, a video tape exists that will kill the viewer seven days after it is watched. The only escape from the curse is to make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else, who must then copy it and show it again to save themselves. Asakawa tracks the tape down and watches it only to realize that the curse is real and that she has seven days to live. She spends the rest of the film searching for the force behind the tape, a psychic girl named Sadako who was killed by her father and dumped in a well years ago. As we see at the end of the film, Sadako climbs out of her well and through the TV of her next victim, manifesting her wrath in the physical realm from beyond the grave.

We have a particular focus on Yūrei ghosts in Japanese horror. Yūrei ghosts are figures in Japanese folklore, comparable to Western legends of ghosts. They often wear white clothing, have long, black hair and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists, which are held outstretched with the elbows near the body. Japanese horror filmmakers explain that the long hair is a metaphor for ancient Japanese customs, where men wore their hair long and unbound and women wore their hair neatly tied up. The unkempt hairstyle of the female villains signifies madness or demonic possession due to its non-conformist associations.