It started with a dare: watch Ju-on already. Was it my meta-fear of my fear? I had long refuted ghosts, so it had to be peer-induced. I had my hypothesis regarding how horror movies work on the audience:
- The superstition that ghosts (might) exist for real;
- The innate disgust at sensory signals associated with human death.
Now I should add the third: peer induction.
For me, mechanism 1 is broken, and breaking mechanism 3 is the motivation, so that leaves only mechanism 2. The signals of human death, is most essentially visual, for auditory signals are hardly uniquely associated with death. Anatomically accurate gore is one way, but expensive. Moreover, a loud disgust might work against building up horror, which in my opinion must convey the power of suppression, rather than agitation.
Colors of death is probably the most abstract inducer of horror. Not only is it wonderfully economical, but being more artistically potent means it can potentially function as a meta-inducer that, via the audience's own experience and imagination, triggers a more disturbing emotion than whatever highly detailed signals are able to. So what are some of the colors of death?
- dark red (blood that is no longer refresh)
- dark blue/purple (still blood seen through skin)
- pale grey/yellow (decaying skin without blood underneath)
Not only are these colors effective on human bodies directly, but also on external elements such as costumes and even lighting.
So how was Ju-on: The Grudge (two volumes)? The scare factor: 3 out of 10, not much different from that of Ring (part 1) that I watched many years ago. Speaking of Ring, I read the complete series long before the movie, and knowing that the books were a story far beyond depicting horror, all the scary scenes in the movie reminded me that they were merely means to get the beautiful world-creating process started. Horror was not a bit the overwhelming factor that could dominate the experience.
Now the Ju-on story is a much simpler one, using horror to materialize the horrendous consequences of domestic violence. But even in such a focused horror story, the filmmaker didn't resort to cheap scares or heavy use of colors of death. The pallette was of low saturation overall (pale, faded, almost vintage), even the ghosts were black & white. Now B/W or grayscale is not necessarily incapable of scaring, it's just much less desperate, which can be a sign of strength in the story itself.
In contrast, Hong Kong horror relied much more heavily on colors of death, in particular, the sharp ones such as red and blue/purple. As part of the horror spree, I dug up a Hong Kong horror that was intensely scary when I first watched it back in high school days, when I still could not psychologically refute the possibility of ghosts albeit the rational part of my mind knew better. The movie had a fairly solid story, but was unfortunately poorly made (which was probably the norm of the genre in Hong Kong). In addition, there wasn't much original elements in the plot (in contrast to Ring), as it heavily borrowed from traditional Chinese superstitions and cruelty of torture (e.g. "Human Swine"). But despite all that flaw analysis, it was highly effective on me back then. It combined both inducers of horror aforementioned, and aggressively applied visual and auditory signals of horror. Quintessential commercial practice.
In comparison, Japanese horror feels more arthouse. Paradoxically, it is the Japanese, not Hong Kong, who achieved international success and influence in the genre. One definite factor is the sheer quality of movie making per se, but I suppose its high originality (which partly benefits from its realistic inclination, paying attention to the world that is affecting us), rather than feeding on cultural legacy, plays a significant role in its ability to infect a global audience. Hong Kong horror relied heavily on an old jargon, got lazy and took all the symbols for granted, without realizing that this automatically erected a high barrier against all outsiders. Well, they probably didn't care, they knew their target audience. Yeah, the question is, are we talking business, or art.
Some minor notes:
The cast of Ju-on: The Grudge (both volumes) consisted of high-profile hot babes of Japan (e.g. Misaki Ito, Noriko Sakai). The sex appeal softens the harsh horror, and it made me feel that such distractions were actually nice. Being arthouse doesn't mean absolute absence of commercial considerations, after all.
Ju-on has a reincarnation theme that is similar to the Ring story. However, Kayako had the help from her ghost son Toshio, while Sadako was able to bootstrap herself to a physical form without a second supernatural power. Sadako wins.
Similar to Kill Bill, the two volumes are highly coupled (i.e. both should be watched, and in the right order), which means that they could have been made into a single movie. Vol. 2 is clearly perceived as the main story, while vol. 1 is like a prologue, just disproportionately long.