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Reviewed by:
  • Japanese Horror Cinema
  • Timothy Iles (bio)
Japanese Horror Cinema. Edited by Jay McRoy. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu, 2005. xviii, 220 pages. $28.00.

It is not an exaggeration to say that, currently, Japanese cinema is known outside Japan for primarily two genres: animation (known as anime) and horror. The latest so-called "J-Horror" phenomenon in North America began with Ringu, Nakata Hideo's effective quest-styled film from 1998 which spawned remakes from not only Hollywood but Korea and, indeed, Japan itself. While anime has received considerable critical attention, inspiring popular fan-zines and academics alike, J-Horror has so far not been favored to the same extent by scholars. This is an odd state of affairs, for—overlooking for now the number of contemporary Japanese horror films available outside Japan via DVD and other distribution methods—the Japanese film industry has a long history of producing works in the horror genre which have ranged in quality from the ultra-low budget, disposably commercial (such as Latitude Zero, an American-Japanese coproduction directed by Honda Ishirō from 1969, from which the American coproducers withdrew, leaving behind a miniscule budget and even less talent) to the internationally acclaimed (Kwaidan, by Kobayashi Masaki from 1964). It is even possible to suggest that the horror genre, with its emphasis on crisis and destabilization, is one of the most appropriate genres from which to view some of the social issues facing contemporary Japan.1 And yet, despite the potential for fascinating critical work this genre holds, still relatively little research has been done on its more representative products, let alone its more obscure or more commercially driven examples. This volume, edited by Jay McRoy, serves as a very competent critical introduction to the history, conventions, and stylistics of this genre of Japanese cinema, but nonetheless it is not without certain limitations that, rather than especially problematic, are more indicative of the breadth of study still waiting to be done on horror in general and Japanese horror in particular.

That the book strives for a comprehensive survey of the issues of contemporary horror is apparent from the start: "the contributors of this book aim not only to provide students, scholars, and fans alike with a valuable critical overview of one of world cinema's most creative, provocative, and visceral traditions, but also to assemble a vital collection of foundational studies" (p. 9) laying the groundwork for future research. Thus, the essays [End Page 264] are arranged thematically in four parts to cover history and tradition, gender issues, "national anxieties and cultural fears" (p. vi), and the transnational reception and consumption of Japanese horror. The contributors, North American and British scholars of film, media, literature, and Asian studies, have all written—sometimes extensively—on horror in general and Japanese horror films in particular, and bring highly sensitive critical faculties to this volume. The essays are informative and informed—theoretically, historically, and methodologically—and offer a wide range of perspectives on their subject.

This is an ambitious project. As Jay McRoy writes in the Introduction, the "critical explorations and detailed case studies [which make up the volume] combine sophisticated cultural analyses with close readings of 'key' works of Japanese cinematic horror . . . [T]he authors . . . map the shifting historical and cultural climates from which, and against which, some of the most influential and best known works of Japanese horror cinema emerge" (p. 9). In general terms, the project succeeds well. The thematic arrangement is logical: certainly not exhaustive, but workable within the context of an introductory volume that avoids the rigidity of chronology in order to present a survey of predominantly contemporary films. While the first section of two essays and one "case study" situate recent works within their relationships to earlier dramatic or cinematic traditions, they do so in order to understand the functions of recent horror films as cultural products aware of, but not necessarily bound by, their progenitors. As McRoy has it,

a fuller comprehension of the extent to which works of Japanese horror cinema engage with historically specific social anxieties may offer scholars a crucial barometer for measuring the impact of economic, philosophical, and political continuities and...

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