Eastern and Western Horror

Over the past two decades, Japanese horror film-making has gained a lot of popularity, more and more audience from all over the world start to pay attention and enjoy it. It`s easy to find out how this becomes possible because Japanese horror is a distinctly different style which comparing with Hollywood and other Western countries. Frequently, it has been said that Western traditions stress ‘visual horror’ that often uses ‘special effects to create kinds of bloody violence’, horror from the East is distinguished by its use of ‘horror atmosphere and lets audiences frighten themselves.’ (Dongchen Er, 2004) So this essay will explain about how to compare Eastern and Western horror films making and aims to find out some new ways to open horror film market and to get to know what the new horror film style is in modern society.

Oppositions

American, European and Japanese filmmaking are all have their own style and trait. It is claimed that "If the American film is mainly–with with many exceptions–about action of some kind; and if the European film–with many exceptions–about character and character development, then what you could say is that Japanese film is in the same sense about atmosphere, about the social extensions and physical extensions that define a person, the idea of environment being responsible for character and action which is created, the idea of something social or natural, or something supra-human, which is shown on the film." ( Barnett, nda)

This opposition is not only tends to reproduce a directly distinction, but also shows some common opposition within Western horror filmmaking. For example, many reviewers such as Tudor, Prawer and Waller have discussed a supposedly ‘restrained’ tradition of horror, that is often exemplified by figures such as Val Lewton, and is supposed to precisely emphasize suggestion over visualization. Wheatley also discusses a similar opposition in debates over Gothic television.

So how to use those oppositions to produce the new type horror films will be one of the important missions in the research.

Globalization

Globalization still to be a hot topic in nowadays, from this big background, film globalization becomes popular, how to make out a film which fit for global audience watching becomes interesting. There are many companies and professional visitors start or continue to research this project. It is claimed that "Films that succeed in the US market also tend to succeed in foreign markets. This suggests that a convergence of popular taste may be coming about, though in many countries this phenomenon also occurs against a backdrop of cultural contestation." (Yale Global)

There is another example about Japanese film Ring and American film Scream when talking about globalization, Critics claimed that Ring was representative of a non-graphic, suggestive tradition in horror, and used the film rhetorically to present a sense of difference from teen horror films such as Scream. (Daniel Martin, 2009) Unquestionable, Hollywood still insist to do this in strategic and have a good result, other countries are also put their mind to research, film globalization might be more and more important in the future.

Follow the globalization, the research could discover wider filming styles and techniques from all over the world and this will follow the pace of the world.

Asia film market

Film market in China and Japan are huge and have further future, as Japan has become the world second largest film market in 2004 (Facts About the Japanese Film Market), China has becomes the world`s second-biggest movie market instead of Japan in 2013 (BBC NEWS 2013),  Asia film market has a stronger future year by year. So how to expand more about Asia film market in using Western advanced technique and theory will be important.