Do you think horror's sort of rooted in local culture? Or at least, rooted in your broad cultural traditions? Certain things are probably scary or at least unsettling in a very broad way, but maybe horror has to tap into specificities to go beyond unsettling and be psychologically relevant?
Y'know, I've been mulling this over for several days. I remember, vividly, seeing both Ringu and "The Exorcist: Director's Cut" while in Japan, and was far more freaked out by the Exorcist. My students were skeptical. Ring, they insisted, was more scary, even if they couldn't explain to me why it ended the way it ended, or why Sadako wrecked vengeance on people not even remotely associated with the terrible thing that had happened to her. I decided that Exorcist scared me more because of my Judeo-Christian upbringing (and my dislike for seeing Lina Blair spiderwalk backwards down a flight of stairs and vomit up blood.) Eventually, I did a little research on the Ringu and Ju-on and found that they're both somewhat based on the Yotsuya-kaidan, a centuries-old folktale that's been made into something like 29 different film versions. So I guess it's a kind of "you had to be raised in this" thing, at least to some degree. (Granted, I was very happy that I had watched Ringu on some else's TV set and not my own!)
As for Uzumaki, I'm willing to bet that's Junji Ito's own special brand of crazy. I'd love to read some psychoanalytic deconstruction of his work! (I'd hate to see him to do a H. P. Lovecraft story! D:)
Word on all your comments about Tsukuba. I'll be on the lookout for it. :)
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Y'know, I've been mulling this over for several days. I remember, vividly, seeing both Ringu and "The Exorcist: Director's Cut" while in Japan, and was far more freaked out by the Exorcist. My students were skeptical. Ring, they insisted, was more scary, even if they couldn't explain to me why it ended the way it ended, or why Sadako wrecked vengeance on people not even remotely associated with the terrible thing that had happened to her. I decided that Exorcist scared me more because of my Judeo-Christian upbringing (and my dislike for seeing Lina Blair spiderwalk backwards down a flight of stairs and vomit up blood.) Eventually, I did a little research on the Ringu and Ju-on and found that they're both somewhat based on the Yotsuya-kaidan, a centuries-old folktale that's been made into something like 29 different film versions. So I guess it's a kind of "you had to be raised in this" thing, at least to some degree. (Granted, I was very happy that I had watched Ringu on some else's TV set and not my own!)
As for Uzumaki, I'm willing to bet that's Junji Ito's own special brand of crazy. I'd love to read some psychoanalytic deconstruction of his work! (I'd hate to see him to do a H. P. Lovecraft story! D:)
Word on all your comments about Tsukuba. I'll be on the lookout for it. :)