Page 182 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Spiraling into Apocalypse 169

Image 18: ‘Would you like to meet a ghost?’ Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Pulse
(© Magnolia Pictures)

Contemporary Catastrophes, Bright Futures

From the atomic and ecological menaces inherent in the plot of daikaiju
eiga like Honda Ishiro’s Gojira (1954), to the melancholic postmodern
meditations of late industrial urban alienation explored in the preceding
analyses of Sono Shion’s Suicide Circle, Higuchinsky’s Uzumaki and
Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Pulse, realisations of apocalyptic devastation have
long provided a horrific yet compelling thematic, visual and
narratological terrain to which Japanese horror film directors frequently
return. At once an end and a new beginning – a representation of death
and entropic dissolution, as well as a depiction of rebirth and emergent
becomings – cinematic imaginings of apocalypse should continue
providing venues for artists eager to frighten their audiences in innovative
ways. Additionally, filmmakers and critics will doubtlessly adopt such
aesthetic productions as terrifying and entertaining platforms from which
they may advance variously explicit (or implicit) social critiques.