The J-Horror Virus Revisits a Film Movement That’s Still Sparking Nightmares

A pervasive feeling of dread. An uneasy certainty that technology has malevolent intentions. The nagging sensation that something retired determination means you harm. Japanese horror, oregon “J-horror,” deed its highest successful the precocious 1990s-early 2000s by tapping into millennial doom—but the temper it conjures besides feels close astatine location successful precocious 2024. It’s cleanable timing, then, that 2023 documentary The J-Horror Virus, directed by Sarah Appleton and Jasper Sharp, is present streaming connected Shudder.

It’s a traditionally structured doc, but it boasts well-curated footage and insightful interviews—there are a fewer movie scholars sprinkled in, but it’s mostly folks (directors, screenwriters, actors) who played an progressive portion successful making the films that shaped and defined the J-horror movement. That includes low-budget aboriginal inspirations Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Scary True Stories (1991), but besides the genre’s biggest hits, including Ring (1998) and Ju-On: The Grudge (2002). It was a close-knit assemblage of collaborators who were influenced by each other, some aesthetically and successful regards to themes and characters, and the emergence of the genre coincided with caller integer filmmaking techniques that played a large portion successful however the films were constructed.

Ring successful peculiar gets a peculiar spotlight, with an exploration of however the film’s occurrence spawned a franchise successful Japan arsenic good arsenic America. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, manager of Cure and Pulse, shares that the “found footage” successful Ring—you know, the cursed video—is inactive uniquely disturbing to him; helium besides opines that portion helium enjoyed the 2002 Gore Verbinski remake, helium thought its cursed-video constituent wasn’t freaky enough.

One of the doc’s astir delightful talking heads is Rie Inō, who played the ghostly Sadako successful Hideo Nakata’s Ring and whose show was truthful unforgettably eerie she agreed to instrumentality for its sequel, adjacent though she’d conscionable had a babe a fewer months prior. (She besides shares the astonishing information that Sadako’s trademark veil of hairsbreadth was each her own—no wig oregon extensions needed.)

Ring (1998) © Toho

But The J-Horror Virus is much than conscionable a clip show. It digs into the reasons wherefore J-horror struck specified a chord with audiences, examining however the elements that came to beryllium seen arsenic tropes (including, yes, the long-haired pistillate ghost) were really drawn from accepted Japanese folklore—”Kabuki tales of terror,” arsenic 1 interviewee describes them—that focused connected women who, aft being wronged successful their lives, sought revenge from beyond the grave.

These past stories took connected caller beingness arsenic modern municipality legends, unspooling successful the different unremarkable lives of mundane people, and amplifying cosmopolitan feelings of loneliness and isolation. In different words, anyone tin ticker a haunted video tape, anyone tin stumble into a cursed house, and anyone tin accidentally interaction a tone portion scrolling done the internet. It could hap to you!

There’s besides treatment of fearfulness arsenic it specifically pertains to Japanese culture, and however the wide popularity of J-horror films encouraged directors from different countries (South Korea, Thailand, America; It Follows gets a shout-out successful this context) to make their ain films inspired by the J-horror style. But arsenic for what intangible prime makes J-horror films truthful uniquely scary, Pulse manager Kurosawa possibly puts it best:

“It is hard to recognize what a horrific lawsuit is. Things that cannot beryllium understood by mean quality reasoning are expressed connected movie without explanation. This whitethorn beryllium the uniqueness of J-horror,” helium says successful the doc. “This was not astatine each intentional, but much a realization that it’s good to permission it arsenic it is, if you don’t recognize it.”

The J-Horror Virus is present streaming connected Shudder.

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