Japanese horror films are known for being incredibly spooky and leaving their audiences feeling unsettled. Perhaps it is the engaging plots or compelling acting, or maybe it is because these films are based on killers that many have already heard of. Films like Ju-On, Ringu, and A Slit-Mouthed Woman contain background information based on popular stories from long ago, which makes the films even more terrifying. While many horror films have no inspiration, Japanese horror films often draw influence from urban legends. Furthermore, these legends commonly focus on women as the central characters for the antagonist.
Initially, Ju-On begins with the story of Rika, a social worker going into a home to help an invalid old lady. However, upon entering the home, Rika soon learns that there are more problems in the house than neglect. After cleaning the woman, Rika begins to clean the rest of the house. Upon entering a bedroom she notices that the closet door is taped shut and discovers a little boy and his cat hidden in there. Rika calls her boss to report the child, but immediately afterwards the old woman begins talking nonsense. Seeing a shadow creep over the old woman, Rika faints and the woman is killed.
Viewers are then transported back in time a bit, as the film begins to focus on Kazumi, his wife, Katsuya, and his mother, Sachie, who viewers learn was also the elderly lady in the Rika short. After working a late day, Kazumi comes home to find his wife lying on a bed upstairs with her mouth open; she is in shock. He panics and attempts to call an ambulance, but before he has a chance, he sees the little boy that Rika let out of the closet, whose name we learn is Toshio. Kazumi cowers against a wall until a presences seems to take ...
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...Woman hold information which makes the films even more menacing. Upon researching the topic of Japanese horror films, it is clear that most draw their inspiration from urban legends. Additionally, these legends regularly focus on females as the dominate character for the antagonist.
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The story begins with an introduction describing the gun Sixto has in his home. He contemplates the thoughts that flow through his mind before making any rash decisions. The plan devised by Sixto to use the gun is greatly influenced by Mandy who has no presence at all. Sixto involves himself in his sister’s unfortunate
And last but not least is the villain in these movies. Most of the killers in these films are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or has some type of facial or bodily deformation and who have been traumatized at an early age. Even though these characters terrorized and murder people they have taken on the persona of anti-heroes in pop culture. Characters like Halloween’s Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees have become the reason to go see these movies. However, over time,”their familiarity and the audience’s ability to identify and sympathize with them over the protagonist made these villains less threatening (Slasher Film (5))”.
When you think of horror movies, what do you think of; blood, spooky faces, or spiders? Well the fact is that horror has really been developed and molded by two major “blockbuster” movies. Those being Psycho and Jaws. The two of movies are both classics and help push the horror genre by being similar in the score and soundtrack, the use of violence, the use of cameras, and the water as a symbol.
The genre of horror films is one that is vast and continually growing. So many different elements have been known to appear in horror films that it is often times difficult to define what is explicitly a horror film and what is not. Due to this ambiguous definition of horror the genre is often times divided into subgenres. Each subgenre of horror has a more readily identifiable list of classifications that make it easier to cast a film to a subgenre, rather than the entire horror genre. One such subgenre that is particularly interesting is that of the stalker film. The stalker film can be categorized as a member of the horror genre in two ways. First, the stalker film can be identified within the horror genre due to its connection with the easily recognizable subgenre of horror, the slasher film. Though many elements of the stalker film differ from those of the slasher film, the use of non-mechanical weapons and obvious sexual plot points can be used to categorize the stalker film as a subgenre of the slasher film. Secondly, the stalker film can be considered a member of the horror genre using Robin Wood’s discussion regarding horror as that which society represses. The films Fatal Attraction, The Fan, and The Crush will be discussed in support of this argument. (Need some connector sentence here to finish out the intro)
Some of the roles that women play in films are the supporting character, a character who dies a painful death, the evil creature, but seldom the main character. When women play the supporting character, they are usually just acting as a love interest for the male main character. Based on our idea of gender roles, women are considered to be inferior to men, which is why females follow the males in the films and not the other way around. Another role that women typically play is a victim that dies at the hands of an evil creature. When they play these characters, not much background information is given about them, since they will inevitably die, and usually within the first half of the movie. When women play the role of the evil creature, they often have feminine characteristics to emphasize their gender, usually dressing in all black to present them as an evil widow. They are also often portrayed as mothers who want revenge for their children, or simply an evil woman to add a more terrifying effect to a scene that a man could not. Another role that a woman can play is the lead character, and when they play this role, they can either be portrayed as an empowering woman who survives the entire film and saves the day, or as a fragile woman who dies in the end because she can longer outrun the
People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified. Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned.
The representation of women in Japanese cinema has been varied. Director Kenji Mizoguchi has portrayed, “an ambivalent attitude toward women….an attitude of mixed adulation, pity and fear toward women” in his films. Ozu Yasujiro, in such films as I Was Born But… (1932), features female characters who are passive and fail at keeping their family together once patriarchal power goes missing. Sharp contrasts are the films of Naruse Mikio whose heroines, “are thinking, active women." Contemporary Japanese movie director Kore-eda Hirokazu’s films are diverse in that each holds either a progressive or conservative representation of women. All of these directors’ filmic portrayals either contribute to perpetuating negative stereotypes of women thereby reinforcing negative sexist ideologies, or provide positive and compassionate viewpoints towards females. Kore-eda’s differing representations are unique in that he consistently uses the same narrative motifs and themes across all of his films, yet each has markedly different female characters representing different societal concerns.
Too many horror films provide scares and screams throughout their respective cinemas. Not many viewers follow what kind of model the films follow to appease their viewers. However, after reading film theorist Carol Clover’s novel, watching one of the films she associates in the novel “Halloween”, and also watching the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” I say almost every “slasher” or horror film follows a model similar to Clover’s. The model is a female is featured as a primary character and that females tend to always overcome a situation at some point throughout the film.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
The story starts out with the Nieve’s custody battle and her parents divorce. Here we are introduced to the family under
Horror films are designed to frighten the audience and engage them in their worst fears, while captivating and entertaining at the same time. Horror films often center on the darker side of life, on what is forbidden and strange. These films play with society’s fears, its nightmare’s and vulnerability, the terror of the unknown, the fear of death, the loss of identity, and the fear of sexuality. Horror films are generally set in spooky old mansions, fog-ridden areas, or dark locales with unknown human, supernatural or grotesque creatures lurking about. These creatures can range from vampires, madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, demons, zombies, evil spirits, satanic villains, the possessed, werewolves and freaks to the unseen and even the mere presence of evil.
Horror literature has been around since as long as man has been on earth. While usually in the form of ghost stories, many have often told stories orally, or on paper, to play on the horrors and darkest fears that we as humans face. While large populations of people do not like the horror genre, some get a satisfaction or enjoyment at looking at some of their worst fears being played out in front of them via a book or movie. As the stories have advanced through history and been examined and read through many different lenses both by history and literature experts, one aspects remains to be examined, and that is the changing role on of women in the story. While many of the early stories early stories portray them as simple, one-dimensional characters, weak and unable to help themselves, they evolve into more complex and eventually pushing through the damsel in distress mantra into the complex villain or hero.
Japanese cinema during the early history of film and through the silent era was similar yet quite different as the history of cinema in the United States and the rest of the western world. Although Japan didn’t have an entrepreneur or inventor trying to invent filmmaking like in England, France, and the United States, it did already have a taste for moving pictures and visual storytelling, leading a transition into film quite natural. Similar to the west, Japanese cinema took its earliest form from other theatrical visual mediums to portray the story being told. Also like anywhere else in cinema history (or history itself), Japanese cinema started out with some exclusionary practices for women. Unlike the west, the silent era of Japan lasted much longer than that of Hollywood, which was already mainly talkies by the 1930s. During this time, Japan was able to
The depictions of women in films have changed in time with society to ensure the films popularity.
Yukiko tells her experience to ‘I’, who then tells the story to the audience through a third person point of view. Even though the ultimate narrator of the metadiegetic story is ‘I’, it is precisely Yukiko who recollects the past as an active agent and thus has an enormous impact on the way how the characters are described. As a primary narrator of the metadiegetic story, Yukiko is able to interact with the story and her current thoughts are often manifested between lines where she describes particular scenes or feelings of the past. For example, at the point of time when she was just gazing at the quarrel between the brothers, she describes that “her heart was uneasy and disturbed” and thought that “she would not be able to look at them anymore” (83). However, in the very next line, she says “when she [Yukiko] recollected the past, she came to realize that she might have regarded them primarily with jealousy. Yukiko felt attracted by the sweet, sentimental desire that emanated from the abyss of their violent passion for each other” (83). The young Yukiko at the time of the event thought she was disturbed by what she saw from the two brothers. Notice that during this time, she was not only at the bottom of the power structure but was on the verge of losing her female subjectivity. Thus, the homosexual implication of the brothers’ relationship only reassured the fact that there is no place for her heterosexuality to stand up. However, as soon as the old Yukiko intervenes the story, her confession acts to emphasize the transformation of her role from a powerless being, desperate to secure her existence, to an observer who is fully aware of her emotion and the corresponding meaning of