JUONNA TALK ABOUT ASIAN HORROR?!

Here's little challenge. Todd suggested I throw up my Juon review. Seemed like a good idea with the remake on the way. It was originally published on Imagine 'Dat! and was intended to be part of a larger article I wrote on Asian Horror.

But the other reason I'd like to reprint it here is because I think it raises some worthwhile questions about the nature of horror.

How about a little dialogue?

What movies do old critics think about on their deathbeds? I'm being a little facetious, I'm sure I'll have other things to think about, but let's just imagine? For me one of the golden periods of film ranks with my discovery of Asian horror cinema in about 2001. I still remember where I was when I first saw Ringu. Appropriately enough a good friend's brother had bought a crummy video disc version from some storefront in Chicago's Chinatown.

I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was Ringu was a horror film considered to be one of the most frightening ever made. What I did know about Japanese horror cinema was that it could get awfully sickening and even though I'd been assured that wasn't the case here I was still wary.

The videodisc was almost unwatchable, the subtitling was the worst I've ever seen. The thing was probably bootleg. My friend and I huddled around his computer (the only device we had that would actually play the thing) and squinted in the dark until it was over. And when it was over…. I realized I would never look at horror films the same way again.

This was also the early days of DVD. No one knew for sure that studios were going to release and upgrade their libraries of classic films. We guarded our VHS tapes ferociously. Sealed copies of silly movies like UHF (a great silly movie mind you) fetched upwards of over $150 on Ebay. If you were lucky enough to have a widescreen versions of any film you didn't loan them out to friends. You archived, stewarded them and prayed the stupid VCR wouldn't chew them to bits next time you tried to play them.

This same time period was not the early days of the horror film not even for ‘me and the horror film'. And it wasn't a golden period either. Horror had become synonymous with gore and monsters and libidinous teens. Oh, and don't forget sequels. But long gone were the real scares, the creep up the spine, the indelible unsettling image that lurked just in the corner of your eye when you walked down a dark hallway

Movies like The Haunting, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Susperia, Black Sabbath, The Exorcist, movies full of ideas and subtext, movies that were scary precisely because of the way they asked “what if?” just weren't being made anymore. There had been some notable efforts on the part of people like John carpenter Wes Craven and Clive Barker to revive this kind of horror film but even most of their best efforts weren't quite up to par.

So horror films didn't produce icons anymore, they might have a cool looking monster and some effects, they might be fun and they made money for the people involved in them but they just didn't stack up against the classics.

All that changed when I discovered Asian Horror.

I've seen so many truly good and even great Asian horror movies in the last five years that I can't even recall them all, Ringu and it's sequels, Dark Water, Audition, Uzumaki, Three, The Eye, Kairo just to name a few. But none of them really prepared me for the unsettling almost unpleasant quality of Ju-On.

Less a story in some ways than a series of scenes Ju-On concerns the murder of a woman and her son. In the grip of an unquenchable rage because of their unjust death they become Ju-On vengeful ghosts who kill anyone that crosses their path. The film is told from the point of the various people who become their victims and each section involving that victim is introduced through a simple blackout and their name in white letters.

This slight setup becomes the stage for some of the most creative scares ever generated for the screen and there's really no way of articulating it in the context of a film review. Imagine yourself in a dark room. You become absolutely certain there is someone behind you. You don't turn around because you're afraid. Then you hear a sound, very low at first. It sounds a little like someone imitating a creaking door only the creak goes on much longer than human breath should allow. Suddenly the door to this dark room, outlined by the light of the next room, opens and after a moment a figure whose face is hidden by long black hair seems to float halfway into the darkness. You can't see the face. Suddenly the head turns , it - whatever it is- is looking right at you, the noise grows louder and it begins to make it's way towards you. The air fills with the sense of something unholy, something foul and just before it touches you….

For fans of truly creepy atmospheric horror the Ju-On series (and a multi-region DVD player) is must viewing. This theatrical film was released first in japan and is actually based on a two-part TV mini-series that aired there. I found the TV version even creepier but it in no real way detracts from this film or it's sequel Ju-On 2 which I feel has been unfairly maligned. These versions have all been available on Ebay and through various foriegn DVD outlets.

Ju-On has been remade for American release with it's original director and starring Sarah Michelle Geller. Produced by Sam Raimi as the debut release for his newly formed Ghost House company the remake should prove a worthy successor to the available Ju-On oeuvre.

It's worth noting that this tradition of ghost story has a profoundly moral center. Why do these films bother us so much? Clearly they depict evil. But they also depict an evil that is inescapable and thus real, truly dangerous. Concepts of sin also come into play as does the idea of the athiest nightmare- what does the presence of such a nightmare imply? How can evil be evil without a standard to judge it by? And if their is such a "cosmic" standard who is it's arbiter? Might we find refuge there?