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28 New Media’s Impact on Horror Cinema 1 The main objeCTive of this chapter is to scrutinize new media’s effect on contemporary Japanese cinema, especially the horror film genre “J-horror.” In particular, I will examine the ongoing contestation and negotiation between cinema and new media in contemporary Japan by analyzing the impact of new media on the transnational horror boom from Japan to East Asia and finally to Hollywood. While academic discourses on the connection between cinema and new media have been increasing, many of them are following the historical constellation of hegemony and capital in cinema—namely, Hollywood as the primary center of production and distribution. From my perspective, the emerging possibilities of new media in cinema have less to do with the progress of computergenerated imagery (CGI) effects in such Hollywood franchises as the Star Wars series (1977–2005, George Lucas) than in the ways regional movements or genres (I will elaborate on these terms below), such as Dogme 95, Chinese Sixth-Generation Films (typically low-budget films made outside the staterun studios), and J-horror, have challenged the long-standing flow of capital and culture emanating from Hollywood. I argue that such a phenomenon is not entirely new in the history of the cinema, but what makes it most interesting is its vernacular staging within a specific time, locale, and media. How did NEW MEDIA’S IMPACT ON HORROR CINEMA 29 a low-budget B genre intrinsically linked to regional popular culture become a transnational film franchise? The answer lies in the contingencies of new media’s influence at all levels of production, text, distribution, and reception. In this chapter I frame J-horror’s emergence since the 1990s as a form of transmedia commodity, one that is based less on theatrical modes of exhibition than on new digital media. Before examining the crucial role of digital production in J-horror films, I want to clarify the relationship between J-horror as a film genre and as a film movement. Simply put, I view them as inseparable entities. In her essay, Kinoshita Chika considers J-horror, like the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) before it, as a cinematic movement and writes, “J-horror [is] a local movement in the late 1990s that comprised films, TV series, and film theory and criticism written by filmmakers, with particular emphasis on everyday life and media. . . . [And also] J-horror specifically refers to a group of relatively lowbudget horror films made in Japan during the late 1990s.”1 In her rationale, a movement can encompass not only a filmic text, but also a director’s writings, marketing, and critic’s reception—paratexts that are integral to the J-horror discourse.2 For this chapter, examining the inclusive processes of J-horror— such as production, distribution, aesthetics in film/DVD texts, and scholarly or journalistic reception—I find it advantageous to share her view of J-horror as a movement and at the same time as a particular body of films: that is, a genre. I conceive of the cinematic movement in a slightly different way from Kinoshita’s in its geographical specificity, in which the movement is not limited to Japan and is rather more permeable and interconnected with other areas— namely Asia or, in a sense, even the United States via Hollywood remakes. In other words, J-horror for me comprises the “national” (“J-” for Japanese writ large) and, at once, the “regional” (as we can see how it often shares some common elements with contemporary horror films from South Korea, Hong Kong, and Hollywood remakes), and consequently I must consider J-horror as a more inclusive cinema movement crossing disjunctive streams of culture, economy, and media. Suffice it to say, the notion of “J-” is thoroughly connected with the media distributor’s strategy of marketing their product both inside and outside Japan. Therefore, as the genre films were produced and disseminated, they were tied not only to the contemporary Japanese national culture but to its various consumers, as we can see with the success of Ringu in 1998, for instance, a success that immediately spread throughout the intraAsia region. This concept of inclusive cinematic movement is applicable not only to J-horror but also to Shochiku nuberubagu (Nouvelle Vague) in the late 1960s. One can easily see the parallels between the film movement in Japan and the movements in world cinema, including French Nouvelle Vague, so [13.58.137.218] Project MUSE (2024-04-26 04:28...

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