[creepy music]
[horror music]
TANANARIVE DUE: Real horror fans
love foreign language horror.
Real horror fans love exploring
the boundaries of the genre,
because just by the
very definition,
you cannot be scared by
watching the same thing
over and over and over again.
[exciting music]
KATE SIEGEL: I think there is
something particularly beautiful
about Japanese horror.
It treats its audience with
such respect in the sense
that they allow for slow
character development,
and they allow for the
slow, creeping horror
as opposed to the jump scare.
[shouts]
KATE SIEGEL: They allow
for flawed characters.
They allow for their
murderers to be people.
They allow for their
murderers to have the most
insane, inventive minds.
They really tap into
the individual's psyche.
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN:
One of my favorites
what are the most chilling
Japanese horror movies?
[japanese speech]
[screaming]
[japanese speech]
ALEX WINTER: The great Japanese
horror movies from the past
came out of Japanese
ghost stories.
Ugetsuis probably my
favorite film of all time.
That is a film that takes
a couple of very famous
Japanese stories
and combines them
and kind of reworks
them into a story.
The samurai era and w*r and
sort of a grand phantom princess
who lures our hero
into a ghost world
that he does not realize
he's in until it's too late.
[japanese speech]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: The classic
story of a farmer who has a side
business, making pottery.
[japanese speech]
And it's in some ways
a cautionary tale about
unbridled ambition and desire.
[japanese speech]
And he loses sight
of his family.
But then part of that
isn't just consumeristic,
but it's sexual in nature.
One of the people that is
interested in his wares
is this what seems like a
noble woman, Lady Wakasa.
[japanese speech]
ALEX WINTER: When the
princess first meets our hero,
we don't know she's dead for
another hour, almost, right?
It's not even implying
she's a ghost, because it's
supposed to be a big reveal.
And our hero looks
up at this woman,
and she lifts the
veil off her face.
And it's f*cking
terrifying, [laughs]
and it's not even
supposed to be.
You're supposed to just
fall in love with her,
and it's just the way she's lit,
her performance, her makeup
it's perfect.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
In Japanese cinema,
you often have these ghosts
that both are and are not there.
Sometimes they can
walk through walls,
but sometimes they're
very physical.
And in fact, so many of
the Japanese ghost stories
involve people having
sex with ghosts.
[japanese speech]
He just then gets
enchanted by this woman
and then finds himself in this
sexual relationship to the point
where he just like
forgets completely
about his wife and his child.
Meanwhile, his
wife is struggling
to keep everything together.
[screaming]
Ultimately, she's k*lled
by marauding soldiers.
Eventually, he wakes
up and returns home,
eager to reunite with his wife.
And there is this
incredible scene where
he comes home to a
fully darkened house,
and he walks around the house.
And the camera follows him.
And as he's walking
around the house,
you can see the lights of
the house slowly come on.
[intriguing music]
[japanese speech]
They're reunited for one night.
But he wakes up, and she's
gone and realizes that he spent
this night with the
ghost of his wife
who stayed around just
long enough so they
could have this reunion.
ALEX WINTER: It's like what
cinema can do at its best
when you just think that's just
operating a whole other level
that no one else can do.
That's just superhuman
artistic skill.
There's a lot of stuff
you'll see in Japanese films
like The Ringand The
Grudgethat hearken
back to early Mizoguchi.
Charles Laughton with
Night of the Hunter
just robs wholesale from
this, and it's very effective.
The Sixth Sense, I
think, takes a lot
from that this notion of, what
is the divide between the living
and the dead?
[suspenseful tones]
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: Japanese
cinema has obviously
had a huge impact
on Hollywood cinema,
but there's these really
obscure two Americans
and strange horror films that
are patient and unnerving
and unhinged in a way
that you've never seen
before in a film like Onibaba.
[shouting]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
I love Onibaba, one
of my all-time favorite films.
This is from 1964
by Kaneto Shindo.
Onibabais one of
those ones that,
again, uses the specter
of ghosts or demons
to talk about sexuality.
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: You've got
these two women who are having
to try to survive in this
really dark time in history
by picking off the
armor, money, whatever
they can off of soldiers
or victims of the w*r.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: So you get
to see this idea of survival
in the midst of w*r, and this
will resonate for decades
with Japanese audiences
who are very intimately up
and close, saw the
brutality of w*r
and what it can do
to a population.
[suspenseful music]
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: They are
hungry, and they're poor.
And they are
sexually unsatisfied.
And they are very close and
bonded as the story begins.
It kind of reminds me of
Gray Gardensin a weird way.
And this guy comes between them.
And the younger of
the two women starts
a relationship with this man.
[japanese speech]
ERNEST DICKERSON:
It's a very sexy film.
It's amazingly
sensuous film with
beautiful black and white reeds,
you know, the waving grass.
What an amazing image that is.
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: The way
that the camera kind of comes
through these landscapes
and the points of view
of the different characters
and the sense of paranoia
and the sense of covetousness
that you get from both
the performances and the
way that the world is
shot and exists in,
creates the sense of dread
as the older woman is
really losing her sh*t.
[panting]
[music intensifies]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
She encounters a lost
samurai with this
creepy demon mask,
and she's able to get that mask.
And she says, I'm going to use
this to scare my daughter-in-law
to stop having sex with
the man that I may or may
not want to have sex with.
[screams]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: But
then at that point,
the mother-in-law is like,
this mask, I can't take it off.
[japanese speech]
It doesn't have to be
supernatural, but it could be.
It's kind of like,
do you believe
there's a force in
this mask that is
possessing the mother-in-law?
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: And then
trying to remove that mask,
it takes like a
mallet and a hammer.
It's like stuck to her face.
[screams]
[ominous music]
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: It's all
symbolic and a great metaphor
for what's been going on
inside, and as these two
women are ripping themselves
and one another apart.
Her d*sfigured face
perhaps evokes the effect
of the atomic b*mb on
people during World
w*r II in terms of what it
did to those who survived it.
Shindo was born in Hiroshima,
one of the two cities
that had the atomic
b*mb dropped on it.
And he was also drafted
into World w*r II,
so he firsthand saw
the horrors of w*r.
DAVID DASTMALCHIAN:
It's a great movie.
It's super weird.
The performances
are so fantastic.
To see actors just be
given free rein to just go
as far as they need to go to
capture that sense of madness,
it's awesome.
[japanese speech]
[suspenseful music]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
Masaki Kobayashi's, it's
spelled Kwaidan, but
the pronunciation
is perhaps closer to Kaidan.
Kwaidanis another in the
classic anthology form
that we see
oftentimes in horror.
ERNEST DICKERSON:
The four films
The Black Hair, Woman in the
Snow, Hoichi the Earless,
and In a Cup of Tea
there is a beautiful
surreality about all the films,
about each one of the episodes.
It's quite amazing.
Kobayashi actually commandeered
a decommissioned airplane hangar
and built these country
sides in the hangar.
I mean, it's all
interior with these
beautifully-painted backdrops
that he himself painted.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
One of the stories
called woman of the Snow, the
backdrops are either a snowy day
or different types of
weather, but there's always
this eye or these multiple
eyes, these humongous eyes just
in the background as if
it's just part of the sky.
And it adds to that sense that
the surroundings are alive,
that there's something at work
beyond just what you think
is sort of provable by science.
[ominous music]
ALEX WINTER: You as an
audience are aware of the fact
that this is not reality.
This is a staged production of
these traditional folk tales,
and yet there is an
emotional resonance
and a truth that comes through
that is pretty profound.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
One story that I
think is worth commenting on,
though, is Hoichi the Earless.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: This man
who's blind, he's a musician.
[japanese speech]
And he's basically
tricked into performing
for the spirits of the dead, not
realizing the risk that he's in.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: He thinks
he's going to this really fancy
place to sing for
nobles, but actually he's
just going to this graveyard.
[music intensifies]
At one point when a religious
authority realizes, oh, my god,
you're in the
presence of ghosts
[japanese speech]
And so what they have to do is
write scripture on his body.
[chanting]
Because of this script,
he basically is invisible,
supposedly, to the ghosts.
But the key is for this to
work in this particular story,
it needed to have been on
every single inch of his body.
But there's one oversight
that you can probably guess,
based on the name of the
story, Hoichi the Earless.
They forgot to write
it on his ears.
[japanese speech]
And so then the ghost
of the samurai says,
well, you know what?
I need to prove that I
at least looked for him.
[japanese speech]
So I'm just going
to take these ears.
Of course.
I mean, what else would you do?
[horror tones]
These are stories that are
meant to chill and maybe teach
you a lesson or maybe
just make you think
that the world, the universe,
is maybe a little bit
more mysterious and profound.
There's something beyond this
sort of temporal existence
that we all operate in.
There's this unspoken
plane of existence
that's there that sometimes
crosses over with our own.
And sometimes it's
in positive ways,
and sometimes it's in
pretty horrific ways.
[suspenseful music]
[creepy music]
[ominous music]
[chanting]
[japanese speech]
[laughs]
[japanese speech]
[screaming]
[thunder crashing]
MICHAEL GINGOLD: There
is kind of a dichotomy
in Japanese horror.
There's been a lot of great
Japanese horror films that
are very moody and
subtle, and then
on the other side of the
coin, you have movies that are
absolutely out of their minds.
[strange sounds]
Hausuis a great example.
That movie is one of the most
wonderfully berserk films
that I've ever seen.
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA LIPPIT:
It's a really strange film
and raises an
interesting question
about the relationship
between horror
and experimental filmmaking.
[japanese speech]
House ismeant to be sort
of Japan's response to Jaws,
of all things, which I think
is like very unexpected,
cause it doesn't resemble Jaws
in any way except that it does.
[laughs]
[suspenseful music]
[screaming]
The story was kind of shaped, at
least in part, by the director,
Nobuhiko Obayashi's whose
then teenage daughter whose
perspective really informed
the characters and just
the general femininity
of this film.
So it's this group
of teen girls.
Gorgeous is the leader, then
there's Fantasy, Mac, Kung Fu.
There's Sweet.
Their names all kind of
like refer to certain types
of personality traits.
And they are just so much
fun to watch together,
but it's also very much
so about like the nature
of disappointment from
a feminine perspective.
So Gorgeous is kind of
the center of the film.
Her father really spoils her.
She's kind of the
apple of his eye,
except he introduces
a stepmother.
And gorgeous is
not OK with this.
What gorgeous decides
to do is, you know what?
I'm going to spend time with
my aunt so she brings six
of her friends along with her
and we're going to
go to my aunt's house
and have a wonderful time.
They're supposed to be
joined by their school
counselor, Mister
Togo, but he doesn't
make it to the train in time.
[japanese speech]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: What she does
not realize is that her aunt has
been dead for years
[crash]
that, in fact,
there's some weird force
where she, her
house, this white cat
are one as a spiritual force.
And basically what ends up
happening in this film is that
gorgeous and her six friends
in classic slasher form
are knocked off one by one.
[japanese speech]
But what then
technically happens
is that they're
eaten by the house.
[screams]
LEA ANDERSON: So
mattresses and clocks
and all of this weird stuff
that you wouldn't think
to be consumptive becomes
a consumptive entity,
and that's where it's like
sort of paralleling Jaws.
Perhaps the most
iconic image of this film
is of the character Melody
who is very musical.
She plays piano.
She plays guitar.
Melody in this film
is eaten by a piano.
[horror music]
[screaming]
How do we make a piano
eating a girl convincing?
[japanese speech]
Well, I think he decided, we're
not going to make it convincing.
We're just going to
make it outrageous.
And then it then
becomes unsettling
at a different register.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: Very
interesting stop motion,
weird double exposures,
inventive use of green screen,
animation.
It was just like
sort of whatever
kept the frame interesting
and just kept you engaged.
[japanese speech]
I'm not sure Obayashi
necessarily knew what was scary,
but he certainly
knew what was freaky.
If you want to assign like
a sort of final girl figure
somewhere, Fantasy sort
of takes that role.
Because she's so
prone to daydreaming,
she also sees the unreality
of things a little bit more
clearly than the others do.
But the one thing
she never lets go of
is the fantasy that
Mister Togo is going
to arrive and save them all
[victorious music]
My lovely princess, Fantasy.
[japanese speech]
which he doesn't.
[japanese speech]
So there's this critique
of the mythologies,
of patriarchy, and the stories
girls and women are socialized
into, and what we can
expect from when we take
these mythologies
as truth and facts,
which is really
just disappointment.
[crash]
[laughing]
[laughing]
One of the first, very
visceral, extreme horror films
is obviously Tetsuowhich
kind of came out of nowhere
and really startled people.
Shinya Tsukamoto kind of
kicked down some doors there
in presenting a new, very
in-your-face, extreme, visceral
approach to the horror
and with some really
creative special effects.
Tetsuo, ofcourse,
when it came out, I mean,
we were all shocked.
Shinya Tsukamoto-san is
still the one and only.
There's no other filmmaker
in the world like him,
and he came out from
a Japanese, kind
of underground, indie
filmmaking world.
And I was blown away by chaotic
editing and visual style
and the bombastic music.
[vibrant music]
ALEX WINTER: Tetsuo
was all done in camera.
It's kind of beyond
a horror movie.
It's almost its own thing.
It's like a conceptual
piece of art, basically.
You kind of can't pick
your favorite moment
because it's really the
whole thing is like one shot
right from beginning to end.
[screaming]
And it's just like you're on
the train, you're off the train,
and the whole thing is a blur.
When I first saw this
movie, it felt like nothing I
had ever seen before.
This guy has been shoving
metal into his own leg,
and he is accidentally k*lled
by a Japanese businessman.
And then this
businessman becomes
infected with this disease.
[squirt]
[groaning]
NICHOLAS RUCKA: He is literally
just sprouting metal
[shouting]
and turning into
this metal beast.
And then he comes
across his doppelganger
is the rust version of him.
And it's basically
their love story.
I mean, it's a
pretty heady stew.
RYUHEI KITAMURA: The world that
Tsukamoto creates for Tetsuo
The Iron Manis really
one of detritus.
This is scrap metal.
This is not the world of that
kind of shining neon technopolis
that Japan itself
celebrated and promoted
as this kind of advanced,
late modernist culture.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: These young men
who were making these films,
their parents were the
sort of miracle generation,
postwar, who got Japan
back up on its feet.
And the casualty from that was
that the parents weren't around.
The dads were not around.
They were married to the
companies, to the businesses,
and the kids were left
to basically run around
in this industrialized society.
Well, all I'm seeing outside
are factories belching out fire.
So if that's what
you're seeing, that
becomes food for the machine.
And you're going to reflect
that one way or another,
and it's going to end up being
inevitably probably a pretty
dark view of the future or
even a perversion, in the case
of Tetsuo, of the present.
[japanese speech]
[g*nsh*t]
[japanese speech]
[flapping]
REBEKAH MCKENDRY: 1999,
Auditioncomes out
from director Takashi Miike.
At this time, we had not seen
a lot of Japanese films coming
over to the States, not anything
like the wave we were about
to see in the early 2000s.
[intriguing music]
[japanese speech]
Nothing could have
prepared me for that movie.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: The movie
sets you up thinking
that he's not a bad guy.
You watch the guy's
wife die from cancer.
In Japan, they
would say gambaru.
He's just doing his best to
kind of get on with life.
[japanese speech]
[pleasant music]
And because his friend has a
suggestion of using an audition
as a way to find a
girlfriend and not
actually cast for something
[japanese speech]
he crossed the
unforgivable bridge.
In this respect, I
would say Audition
actually is maybe
something a little bit more
in common with Kwaidan.
He had transgressed in
a way he had no idea,
not even for bad intentions.
He was not a bad guy.
The problem was
the woman he fell
for, he fell for without really
knowing anything about her.
It was looks and manners
purely superficial.
[intriguing music]
KATE SIEGEL: That
man really thought
he knew where that was going.
He did not.
None of us did.
I will always love that
long shot with the sack
in the background
[music intensifies]
and then just
[phone ringing]
Brilliant, brilliant,
brilliant movie.
[japanese speech]
MICHAEL GINGOLD: But there's a
lot of really interesting stuff
going on in that film just
beyond the surface level
horror about relationships
and about the way
people relate to each other.
[japanese speech]
[suspenseful music]
KATE SIEGEL: Like
most horror movies,
it takes a grain
of truth, and it
kind of distorts
it into something
grotesque and unrecognizable.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: It's a high
water mark for horror, I think,
just bar none.
I don't even think you
should call it J-horror.
I just think it's a fantastic
piece of horror storytelling.
[ominous music]
[laughs]
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA
LIPPIT: I'm perpetually
surprised by what Miike does.
Of course, he's famous for
Auditionand that genre
of sort of extreme violence.
[japanese speech]
But he has an incredible
versatility and
a tremendous sense of humor.
He's done period pieces.
[thoughtful music]
He's done nostalgia films.
He does comedies.
[singing]
He does musicals.
RYUHEI KITAMURA: I was
just watching the TV,
and Miike-san came up and
talking about his work.
And he said, more the
script is bad, motivates me.
[laughs] I was like, oh,
my god, Miike-san You are
[laughs]
That is the power he has.
He doesn't in a good way,
he doesn't really care.
He can just make it happen.
Whatever he does, he
put his stamp on it.
And I really admire that.
[fighting sounds]
[japanese speech]
[creepy music]
[japanese speech]
[screaming]
[japanese speech]
[g*nsh*t]
[japanese speech]
[g*nsh*t]
[train horn]
[japanese speech]
Around like '99.
2000, 2001.
those days, Japanese
industry had very
this crazy passion.
[shouting]
[g*nshots]
Producers were giving
young, passionate
director a little bit of money
and just do whatever you want.
Go as crazy as you can.
That's why we were still able
to explore our pure passion
and creativity.
Horror films in the 1980s and
after were often nicknamed V
cinema, and V stood for video.
So they never got a
theatrical release.
They went straight to
video rental houses.
You have these very
low-budget but very innovative
horror films.
[scratching sounds]
RYUHEI KITAMURA: A lot
of hardcore horror fans
prefer the original,
straight-to-video Ju-On
than The Grudge.
The Grudge
[croaking sounds]
One of the things that
I love about The Grudge
and about Japanese horror
is it's coming from not only
different mythologies,
but also use of space
is very different in Japan.
[suspenseful music]
And the way people's
houses are laid up
and the size of the
rooms, so in The Grudge,
this creature is appearing
from camera angles that
are constantly surprising
us, because we're just
not expecting to see him there.
We're not oriented.
We're not oriented
in the mythology.
We're not oriented in the space.
[screaming]
It keeps us off-balance
visually through the whole film.
JEFFREY REDDICK: And it
was totally nonlinearly,
so I had to kind of keep
track of what was going on.
But I didn't mind it,
because I was kind of
so tired of films being told in
just an A to B to C kind of way.
[suspenseful music]
We've heard the concept that
if somebody dies horribly,
their spirit will linger,
like horrific acts in the past
will haunt the present.
But it was so interesting to
see how this house was infested
but how it also
affected generations
of people and then
kind of uncovering
the mystery at the same time.
[mysterious music]
Culturally speaking, there's a
huge difference between the way
the Japanese and
Americans treat ghosts.
Americans are very
distanced from death.
Death is something
we gloss over a lot,
and so ghosts aren't
something that are
part of a normal conversation.
If I tell you I think the ghost
of my father is in my house,
you're going to think
I'm a little weird.
I think in the Japanese
culture, there's
more of a sense of ancestry
and spirits and ghosts
being something that you
can encounter at any time.
One of the great things
about Ju-On isthe motif
of the haunted house, that
once you get inside that house,
you are victimized.
But the assumption
is that if you leave,
or if you can get
out, then you're safe.
The Grudge, you,
get followed home.
This idea that even when
you leave the haunted space,
you're stuck with it.
[knocking]
[gasps]
[croaking sounds]
[screams]
KATE SIEGEL: It's touching
into that Japanese horror
understanding that
violence and fear can
happen anywhere,
in the most basic
of things, like real estate
[suspenseful music]
and treating it
with the respect
without kind of winking
at it at the same time.
[creaking sounds]
[japanese speech]
Battle Royale isabout Japan is
under an authoritarian
government,
and they pick a class
of kids every year.
And they basically fight
to the death on this island
until there's a sole survivor.
[japanese speech]
This is kind of the film
that says, well, you know,
what if your teachers really
were trying to k*ll you?
[japanese speech]
[suspenseful tones]
There is this
national competition
going on assembled
by Takeshi Kitano
who's like one of the biggest
[laughs] names in Japan.
He's a very familiar
actor and director,
but he set up like the
teen version of The Most
Dangerous Game,
where the kids are
outfitted with these collars.
[japanese speech]
[g*nshots]
They're all given
different weapons.
They're let loose
on this island.
[japanese speech]
And last man standing
is the winner.
It sounds like
Hunger Games, yeah,
it pretty much is, although
this is considerably bloodier.
[music intensifies]
[g*nshots]
[laughs] And I think the social satire is
a lot more scathing in this one.
[screaming]
Despite 40 kids or whatever
k*lling each other in the most
brutal of ways, it really is
kind of just standard, as we
know it, high school teenage
drama with the gossip
and the drama and
the relationships.
[japanese speech]
It's like it has
all those tropes,
but they f*cking k*ll each other
instead of just not talking.
[g*nshots]
It is really anarchic
filmmaking that has
this remarkable energy to it.
[screams]
Kinji Fukasaku
was 75 or something,
and he's able to
direct this film.
Battle Royaleis,
in many respects,
almost like an epilogue,
an aging filmmaker thinking
back about, this is what happens
when the fascists are in power.
They don't value
the price of youth.
They're willing to let you
die over something as simple
as, just looks
like fun and games.
[ominous music]
[screams]
In Japan, this was seen
as something that was
sort of like manga territory.
It was very fantastical in a
way that it was very symbolic,
whereas you show it in
Americans in the early 2000s,
you saw it, and it was a little
too close to home at the time.
Since then, it's become
like one of the biggest
cult hits in Japanese history.
It's considered an
absolute classic by now.
[japanese speech]
[chatter]
[horror tones]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
Ringuor The Ring
is probably the film that people
associate with Japanese horror.
Ringuis this story about
this cursed videotape.
[japanese speech]
If you watch it, seven
days later, you will die.
I think part of what made this
resonate with audiences, first
of all, this fear of technology.
Japan has often been at
the forefront of consumer
electronics, and so to have
these J-horror films that
tap into that fear, I think,
is something that is enduring,
the fact that this is
something that's in your home,
if it's a cell phone
in your pocket.
And some way it's going to
be a harbinger of your death?
That's something that I think
that people can relate to.
Ring, tome, really
personifies a style of kind
of '90s Japanese
horror that is really
stylized but also mundane.
There's an aesthetic
to that film
that feels very
grounded in reality
but also highly
composed and creepy.
And I think no one has
done that except that era
of Japanese horror.
[gasps]
My husband, Steven Barnes,
is also a huge horror fan.
And years ago, he was
doing some research
and heard about this film.
It had not reached
the United States yet.
So he ordered it, and we
ended up with a videotape.
We watched this entire
movie in Japanese,
not understanding a
single word of it.
And it still scared
the crap out of us.
It's just like that old film
school lesson, they say.
You should be able to
turn the volume down
and still follow the story.
We were following the story.
When I saw Ringu Iwas terrified
for such a long time of every
girl with long black hair
forever.
[laughs]
[japanese speech]
Ringuis definitely one of the
most iconic villains out there.
It just has this
texture of somebody
that is just slimy and
real and almost like
decomposing right
in front of you.
There's absolutely continuity,
I think, with the ghosts
that you see in something
like Ugetsu, like Kwaidan.
We see that absolutely come
through with a character
like Sadako.
Sadako also very much
part of this idea
of being a vengeful
spirit, and this
is somebody who's had
a profound trauma.
She did seem to have
sort of psychic abilities
that led her to be othered
[japanese speech]
and then ultimately to
be m*rder*d by her father.
MICHAEL GINGOLD: It's
really gripping and chilling
all the way through,
and it gets to the point
where it seems like the
plot has been resolved.
And then you get
to that TV scene.
[suspenseful music]
[music intensifies]
You could just feel
everyone just be
[gasps]
Essentially it was
inspired by Videodrome.
Instead of like going into
the TV set, it's coming out.
It's a very simple gag, but
one of the things that's
so interesting about it is
that after Sadako comes out,
and she comes out, and
their hair is down,
they cut to the
close-up of the eye.
Fun fact that's not
the actress's eye.
That's the assistant
director's eye.
So they used this guy's
eye for the close-up.
Now, why would you do that?
Because it's horror.
It's meant to make
you feel unsettled.
It's supposed to be uncanny,
and I think it succeeds in that.
[shouts]
[thunder crashing]
[creepy music]
[suspenseful music]
[japanese speech]
[screams]
[japanese speech]
[child crying]
[screaming]
[japanese speech]
[shouts]
[thunder crashing]
[jaunty music]
[police siren]
Cure, Iwould say,
without equivocation
is one of the masterpieces
of Japanese cinema,
regardless of genre.
All of the elements of horror
in Japan, from ghost stories
to the supernatural to
the monsters, all of this
reaches a certain
apex in this film.
NICHOLAS RUCKA: The
detective has a wife who's
dealing with some sort
of mental illness,
and there's these murders
that are happening where
the people that
are committing them
go from being normal
to sort of enter
into these mesmeric states, and
they do these horrible crimes.
[japanese speech]
And the linchpin seems to be
this young man who is handsome,
but he's also of very few words.
He speaks in kind of riddles.
[japanese speech]
He's like the anti-Joker
to Koji Yakusho's Batman.
There's so much beautiful
setup in that movie.
It's almost like the
Japanese version of Seven
this serial k*ller
movie in a way
that just twists it all on its
head, and it just grabs you.
And there's so much long buildup
between moments of violence
which are fairly matter
of fact in that movie.
[suspenseful music]
[g*nsh*t]
This is a film that's
basically a world that's sort
of slowly going out of control.
It's going crazy.
I think it is sort of
a response to a society
that it's like, everyone's
acting really busy.
This is all really
important, what we're doing.
But, wait, what are we doing?
What is this all for?
[japanese speech]
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA LIPPIT:
Kurosawa makes films that reveal
the extraordinary
in the ordinary,
and I think that's
his unique talent.
So even a film like Cure,
which is so atmospheric and so
stylized, is filled with
so many domestic scenes,
so many ordinary
interactions between people,
between detectives and
professors and doctors in a way
that might indicate
melodrama rather than horror.
And yet somehow the strangeness
seeps into those moments.
[music intensifies]
I know a lot of
people don't like cure,
and they don't like the
fact that it makes you feel
kind of crummy, kind of grimy.
It's like there's no answers.
But as a horror movie, boy
RYUHEI KITAMURA:
Kiyoshi Kurosawa,
he has very specific
directing style,
visual style, even the way
he uses the sound and music.
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI:
It's working at a level
where sometimes you don't
know exactly what it is you're
supposed to be scared of.
[intriguing music]
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA
LIPPIT: Pulse, I think,
is a really tremendous film
in its ability to create
a terrifying narrative.
[suspenseful music]
RYUHEI KITAMURA: I
think that movie don't
fit into this Hollywood movie
making act one, act two, act
three character arc so
while you're watching it,
you don't really understand
the story or the theme
or the character arc.
But something grabbed
me, this atmosphere.
EARNEST DICKERSON: It's kind of
like a new modern ghost story,
and they're really,
really, really creepy.
There's this one image of this
woman ghost that's approaching,
and just how she moves
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA
LIPPIT: It's a ghost story
about the world of ghosts being
overpopulated as if there was
a kind of finite
number of ghosts
that the afterlife
could support.
[japanese speech]
And the ghost
starts seeping back
into the world of the living
through online connections.
So on first glance, it appears
to be a film about the horrors
of a new technology.
[phone ringing]
[shouting]
But that film is really
about loneliness.
It's about isolation.
It's about the horror
of being alone
[japanese speech]
which is, I think,
something that
is particularly pertinent
to Japanese life
and Japanese postwar life.
[japanese speech]
When the movie gets to
like 70 minutes, 80 minutes,
it's almost like the end
of the world, you know
very apocalyptic feeling.
It made me feel like I was
watching something more than
just a ghost movie, and
I think that's probably
one of the things that
makes J-horror stands out is
you can't really get it why.
It's not like you k*ll
somebody, you get cursed.
It's not that simple, right?
There's always
multiple layers to it,
and you don't really
understand why
why suddenly this is
the end of the world.
[screams]
[vibrant music]
NICHOLAS RUCKA: Kiyoshi
Kurosawa said in an interview
that when it comes to
horror, there's only
three endings you can have.
One insanity.
[shouts]
NICHOLAS RUCKA: Two
you become the m*rder*r.
[g*nshots]
Or three the world ends.
[roaring flames]
And if you watch his
movies, that's basically it.
[expl*si*n]
[screams]
[japanese speech]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: Noroi
The Curse, I think,
is one of the greatest found
footage films ever made.
It's basically a
film that is about
this documentarian journalist
filmmaker who explores
supernatural phenomena.
But the beginning of
the film conveys to us
that this filmmaker
has disappeared
after making the
film that you're
about to watch called Noroi.
[japanese speech]
And so sort of this idea
of the film you're watching
is about the making of the
film that you're watching,
that sort of meta level.
I think adds to that creepiness.
The director, Koji Shiraishi,
works a lot within found
footage, and it really
seems like a genre
he's consistently
interested in exploring
and using the aesthetic of.
But this is the most densely
layered version of it.
[japanese speech]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: It's
just a complete mimicry
of all these different
media forms, including
Japanese variety,
television that
lends credence and
sort of authenticity
to this ghost story.
[japanese speech]
One of the reasons I think
that filmmaker loves working
within sort of found
footage or faux documentary
is there something that applies
to the video in The Ring.
You'll never see
clearly with some
of that old video, whether
it's VHS or whether it's DV.
There's always
going to be grain,
or there's something that,
at least in our eyes, feels obscured
[shrieking]
and thus feels
creepier, thus feels
like there's hidden layers,
thus feels like more
potential for the supernatural.
And I think that's really cool.
[creepy sounds]
[japanese speech]
TODD KUSHIGEMACHI: It's
kind of a detective story
as you kind of follow
the different lines,
but it's basically
about this ritual
to pacify this ancient
demon that stopped abruptly.
Part of it had to do with
one of the young women that
was involved in
this procedure seems
to have gotten possessed over
the course of this rituals.
[screams]
And I think it's really
important that the documentarian
is somebody who takes
this stuff at face value
because oftentimes
in horror films,
our point of identification
is the person
who doesn't believe this stuff.
This is a film where the people
that you are identifying with
are the people who
do believe this stuff
and are experts on this stuff.
One of the most sympathetic
characters that we really
align with is one
character who literally
has the iconic tinfoil hat.
His house is decked out.
Covered in aluminum.
He has a hat that's
covered in aluminum.
His clothes is
covered in aluminum.
But he's the one who sees all.
He's the one who
actually understands.
[japanese speech]
There are so many different
threads that collide.
And by the end, It
all comes together.
But it's also just out of
reach, which I think is also
part of the interesting thing.
It's all there, but
it's all not there.
[intriguing music]
[japanese speech]
[suspenseful music]
PROFESSOR AKIRA MIZUTA LIPPIT:
The Japanese cinema in its best
instances is often in
the hands of people
who are exploring
that medium to see
what is possible with
this set of tools.
[shouts]
PROFESSOR AKIRA
MIZUTA LIPPIT: And you
see the range of filmmakers that
would fall under that category,
whether we are talking
about the great masters
of Japanese classical cinema
to contemporary filmmakers
[growling]
to experimental filmmakers
to arthouse independent
and so forth.
And horror, I think certainly
contemporary but really
historically, is one
of the genres in which
that experimentation and that
discovery, that exploration
happens time and again.
[music intensifies]
[splat]
[creepy music]
[japanese speech]
[shouting]
[japanese speech]
[screams]
[suspenseful music]
[shouts]
[japanese speech]
[groaning]
[gasps]
[croaking]
[shouting]
[japanese speech]
[intriguing music]
[japanese speech]
[jaunty music]
[japanese speech]
[g*nsh*t]
[japanese speech]
Scientists talk about laughter
having come originally
from a fear response
as a way of mitigating
fear or shock,
a negative as opposed
to a joyful thing.
A really good horror filmmaker
knows that they kind of have
you riding the line of a laugh.
We're gonna have some laughs.
[Smooches, laughs]
I'll stop doing it
when you stop laughing.
[closing music]
[cats meowing]
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01x03 - Japanese Horror
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Embark on a thrilling journey through the genre's best with insights from the masterminds behind your favorite scares.
Embark on a thrilling journey through the genre's best with insights from the masterminds behind your favorite scares.