My recent article on Japanese horror attempted to explain horror in Japan by examining some details of the Japanese culture. Nicholas Rucka takes a different approach in his fascinating article The Death of J-Horror?: he describes in some detail the history of Japanese horror cinema and why the current boom isn’t likely to survive indefinitely. […]
This morning I decided to browse some of the entries for the Silent Hill Poster Contest, but I found that a gallery isn’t provided on Sony’s site. So I wrote a very simple script to display the entries. There appear to be around 2000 entries at the moment, though I think it’s safe to assume […]
I’ve finally posted a new feature, Chris’ Guide to Understanding Japanese Horror. This article is a detailed look at Japanese horror within the context of Japanese culture. I attempt to explain how horror from Japan works on a very general level, and how the mechanics of Japanese and American horror differ. Here’s an excerpt: The […]
1up.com has a story about a contest to design the upcoming Silent Hill movie by Christopher Gains. From their article: The full contest details are available at www.welcometosilenthill.com, but here’s what you need to know: design a poster in JPG or GIF format no larger than 300K using assets provided on the website itself (art […]
Happy Halloween Everybody! Why not celebrate by curling up with the original Night of the Living Dead, available for free download/stream in all its glory. Or, if that’s not your cup of tea, how about translations of classic Japanese horror stories (my favorites include Yuki-Onna and Mimi-Nashi Hoichi) by Lafcadio Hearn? I totally ripped off […]
Since my thoughts on movies are so amazingly popular, I thought I’d post a few more. The Brood is a pretty great horror film by David Cronenberg. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with demon children, and Cronenberg does an excellent job with suggestion and understatement. The demon kids all wear similar winter coats, you […]
My computer has either been taken by the dreaded Astwihad or it has suffered a hard disk failure. At any rate, I’m behind on a backlog of news and database updates. Everything should be in the right by next week. Here’s some quick news: Siren is becoming a movie! Here’s some info and pictures of […]
Today I had a few hours to kill, so I watched Uzumaki. Uzumaki is yet another post-Ring Japanese horror flick that probably would not have warranted American release if fanboys like myself were not creating demand for Japanese horror. Adapted from a manga series by the same name, Uzumaki (which means “spiral” or “vortex”) is […]
I watched Ju-Rei last night (Japanese title is actually kuro jurei (), lit. “black vengeful ghost”), which is a Japanese horror film by Koji Shiraishi. This movie is only interesting because it is like a catalog of Japanese horror movie elements, mostly ripped from much better films like Ring and Juon. The movie unfolds in […]
I used to watch a lot of horror movies, but I don’t have much time for them any more. Just recently I saw a few (a failed attempt to erase Alone in the Dark from my brain), so here’s a few impressions. The Shining (1980) – This movie is famous for a reason. It’s got […]