Of Yurei, cheese and Japanese horror movies in the U.S.

I’m a sucker for the Japanese horror movies. The thing is, if not the Japanese market, the scary movie genre would die out completely in the U.S. Or else, it would just suck.

Since all the possible stories about people possessed by Satan were already exploited, most of them multiple times, the scary movies’ producers in Hollywood seem to fall into panic and turn to more and more awkward ideas, including killer plants.

It was once the case that the cheesier a horror movie got, the more popular it was (thanks to which school we have such gems as Frogs, Redneck Zombies, The Attack of Killer Iguanas, and The Femalien series). The scariest thing is that nowadays the cheesy movies are advertised as really scary.

It seems that the easiest way to make a relatively successful American horror movie now is not to give up the ghost, but to steal it from the Japanese.

That is the case with the newest release, Shutter, but also several previous remakes which gained relative popularity in the U.S., such as The Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water, Pulse or One Missed Call.

Those who know at least a little about the East Asian spiritual culture will probably understand why all of the originals are better. Still, I will try to compare the Japanese movies with their American doubles.

First, though, some characteristic features of a Japanese horror movie for those who might have problems distinguishing such. Each of the following motives occurred in all three movies: The Ring, The Grudge and The Shutter; as well as in most of the others—
• The grudge- the reason why the ghost is killing is always because it was hurt by someone when alive, or killed brutally
• Crawling- the ghosts crawl. It makes them appear more dead. Who ever invented the flying ghosts anyway?
• Female protagonist- who solves the mystery and encounters the scariest contacts with the ghost
• Her man- who never ends up happily
• The unbeatable ghost - in none of the movies the ghost actually leaves. It either remains with its main victim, or hints its presence in a way inspiring a great sequel

Now, the main differences between these and the American counterparts, and the reasons why the latter suck:
• The female protagonist is blond—even when it’s Sarah Michelle Gellar, it just doesn’t seem right
• Americans are not scary—not that the Japanese are, but American actors, at least those playing in the American versions of these movies look like a happy meal advertisement. The women are too cheerleader-ishly pretty and the guys are either too good looking for horror movies at all, or they have played in Dawson’s Creek, which just feels awkward
• The gloomy paranoia of spiritual reality in Japanese movies is replaced by corny Hollywood “scary effects” like the pickaboo technique or gory characterizations
• Americans make stupid jokes—for a simple example: the guy comforting his woman after she thought she hit a Japanese girl with a car—
Guy: Even if there was a girl on that road, I’m sure she’s sitting right now on her bed, eating ice-cream
Girl: Do they even have ice-cream in Japan?
Guy: They do, but they’re made of fish
[both laugh]

It’s just dumb…