Page 19 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

6 Nightmare Japan

course, should readers construe this succinct review as anything even
remotely approaching comprehensive. Indeed, no scholars have yet
authored a thorough book-length study of the history of the horror genre
in the one-hundred plus years of Japanese film. This is an unfortunate
omission; such a tome would prove an invaluable contribution to cinema
studies. Certainly, the specific historical and cultural moments I explore
in the impending chapters disallow for such an extensive generic
archaeology. However, as one can trace back many of the motifs and
themes comprising contemporary Japanese horror films to prominent
works within this abundant cinematic tradition, sketching out some of the
most prominent contributions over the last fifty years seems an
appropriate, if not vital, rhetorical gesture.

Post-War Japanese Horror Cinema

Although horror cinema existed in Japan previous to the end of World
War II, Japanese film culture of the 1950s and 1960s was the site for a
virtual explosion of tales of terror and apocalypse. These films generally
conformed to two dominant genres: the kaidan, or ghost story, dominated
by the onryou (avenging spirit) motif, and the disaster narrative, perhaps
best – and certainly most famously – exemplified by the daikaiju eiga, or
giant monster film. Drawing on a multiplicity of religious traditions, from
Shintoism to Christianity, as well as the plot devices from traditional
folklore, literature and theatre (including Noh theatre’s shunen- [revenge-
] and shura-mono [ghost-plays], and Kabuki theatre’s tales of the
supernatural), kaidan films depicted the incursion of supernatural forces
into the realm of the ordinary, largely for the purposes of exacting
revenge. In the majority of cases, visual representations of the ‘avenging
spirit’ assumed the form of a ‘wronged’, primarily female entity returning
to avenge herself upon those who harmed her. A continuation of a
cinematic tradition in place long before the second world war began,
prominent features associated with the onryou include long black hair and
wide staring eyes (or, in some instances, just a single eye). These
physiological details carried a substantial cultural and aesthetic weight, as