Japanese Horror, or J-Horror, is somewhat of a new genre to me. Something I knew about but never really bothered watching. I don’t watch Horror films very often anyway because I find that being scared isn’t a thrill I seek out, and ghost stories have never held a particular appeal for me either. I’m a bit of a wimp like that.
However, saying that – I have found myself enjoying and reading the small bit we did cover and that does make me wonder why this was different to the other things I’ve read. I didn’t find the stories in the Kwaidan exceptionally scary, but then again I don’t think they were about that. I think they were horror stories that were meant to be creepy but I don’t think that they were trying to be scary in the same way that Western Horror often is, I didn’t feel like it was trying to push me as far as it could manage by shocking with blood and guts. I enjoyed reading American Psycho, but it wasn’t the torture scenes, it was the type of character that Patrick Bateman was, the lies he told us, the way he was so obviously a broken man that made him interesting and made the book enjoyable.
I love to see things that feel rooted in History and I do think that what I’ve seen of Japanese Horror embodies a more traditional type of horror, the psychological leaving a longer lasting and overall more interesting effect on the reader.
Some how it reminded me of the Magus by John Fowles. It seems like a long stretch but the book messed with my psychological state even though it wasn’t a horror – I found that far more enjoyable and I’m sure if I read more of the J-Horror I would begin to see more of the similarities. The difference between what is real, what is imagined and how they blur the lines between the two seems like a common theme.
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