Monday, 27 December 2010

Asian horror & a bad case of advertising

Asian horror
Last night i watched "the grudge", i URGE you to watch it, its a japanese horror film done so fantastically it chills me to think about it. No it's not a gory film, even in the slightest, films such as the Saw series and pretty much everything out of america thinks someone has to be dismembered in order to scare its audience. Japanese, heck, asian filmmakers in general have worked out that the things we DONT see can be horrifying!

Think: what would chill you more, seeing an alien running full pelt at you tentacles waving about, slime dripping from its fangs as the violins go eek! eek! eek! or being alone in your house, catching a glimpse of a ghoulish figure, eyes filled with hatred and malice, when you spot it you whip around to find nothing there as a cold finger whips down your spine.

Of course, the first example is american horror, based around shock tactics; things that jump out at you and evoke a fight or flight response, but theres only so many times this can work on you before you become desensitized and you can predict when something will jump out and which of the cast will get killed first (probably the least attractive one). The second example is asian horror, a psychological approach that makes you wonder if you actually saw what you did, you doubt yourself and you find yourself looking for the evil thing in dark corners of the screen, when the evil thing appears onscreen you will only see it for a flash, your mind fills in the parts you dont see and you dont want to go to the bathroom as its night time and the hallway light isnt on!

Ok i skewed off a bit there, im describing my own experience watching the grudge. i dont get that with american films, im not about to believe that in the bathroom is an axe wielding maniac with chainsaws for legs, but my mind tells me it's entirely possible i just saw something move in the shadows or that the bump i heard from the attic isnt natural. Asian horror gets into your brain, it's efective at making your imagination run away with you, which is kinda sneaky as the film itself only does half the work!

Now of course, im not going to say westerners cannot do it too, or that asian filmmakers dont make gory films as this is just not true (battle royale for example is a bit gory, nothing compared to saw, and is another all time classic!) you may remember a film called "the blair witch project" i know many people that HATED it, thought it was pathetic as it was made with a videocamera and there wasnt a monster. What was SPECTACULAR about that film was the sounds, the story, the gritty realism it portrayed. students go into the woods to investigate the blair witch myth, certain they wouldnt find anything but they did it anyway. during the nights they hear terrifying sounds, they find signs of people in their campsite, and the film climaxes with an amazing scene: seeing one of the students standing in the corner of an abandoned house as the girl with the camera screams his name and the camera is knocked to the floor. what happened!? whos there? YOU DONT KNOW! brilliant cinema! My point is that films like this are rare in the west, the asian horror genre however seems to be saturated with them.
Note: maybe asian film lovers are fed up with them and think Alien vs predator is a fantastic film. i pity them.

American re-release
Now heres an interesting point, the grudge was released here in the west with some well known actors including Buffy's Sarah Michelle Gellar. It has its pros and cons, on the plus side it was set in japan and directed by the original director Takashi Shimizu, on the downside 70% of the cast were american for some reason, ruining the whole point of setting it in japan and the main character has a boyfriend called Doug! ("Doug?" thatas not a name synonymous with a psychologuical horror, Doug is the name of some asshole in a teen slasher flick.) When compared to the original it is less eerie as the spirits are onscreen a lot more and as the picture quality is higher due to hollywood budgeting the film has less of that grainy realism which added to the atmosphere. Oddly though the story is a lot more concise: when the grudge came out it was actually the 3rd in a series, so when it was re released in america the plot was summarized and made easier to understand without having seen the past iterations. Overall the american grudge IS worth seeing, but not if you are a fan of the original japanese version, the way its been westernised will stick out like an axe in your back


A bad case of advertising
Ok we're here in the main thrust of the blog, advertising. Having watched through some asian horror films i was surprised to see that there is a videogame based on the grudge available on the Wii (yes, you knew this was about videogames didnt you?) intrigued i looked at a trailer for the game and i was chilled to the bone!

They took a great concept for a game and made it look Pathetic! there would be something to a game that has you tormented by spirits and unsure of what you see and hear (there is a game on wii called "the calling" i think, and that was very scary even though there were no monsters) this trailer however talks about scoring! points arent important in a horror title! it has ALWAYS been about the experience, the story, what YOU felt playing it. Grading it seems arbitrary as you might be frightened but you will be told you did poorly at the end of it, and encouraged to do it again to do better this time around? The trailer even has the ridiculous idea of showing you the players! during one scene something or other onscreen makes these people jump and they flail their arms about jovially, one man even put his hand on his chest as to say "ooh! that scared the living daylights out of me, that did" Why did the people advertising this game feel the need to show players getting scared? we could make out that it is a scary game, and them getting frightened and spazzing out only brings to light once more the pathetic scoring system they crowbarred into the game.

your point?

My point is that a brilliant concept for a game when advertised so abysmally doesnt make me want to buy it, ill admit some of the blame goes to the developer for making a scoring system but for the marketers to focus on it like it's a positive thing and even show people playing it (not hardcore gamers ill expect) makes it seem very lighthearted, that is is only a game and you arent getting involved in the experience, which is not the message you want to get across.

When advertising Kinect for the xbox 360 the players were the focus as they were doing something unique: playing a videogame without a controller (we'll ignore the fact sony got there years before) this was fitting and showcases what needs to be, the grudge on wii however was ignoring it's story and setrting completely in the advertising. Fans of the movies (who im guerssing this is aimed at) want to know why we're in the cursed house, what we must do, when in the series it is set or if it is a stand alone storyline. as gamers we want to know if it controlls well, if the visual and audio quality is good, if it has replayability or will always be the same experience. neither of those groups im certain asked for a horror title that grades you on whether you jump at the scary bits or not.


Moving on

Well thats my rant on horror. This christmas i recognized that i would never feel the christmas spirit like i did when i was a child so i went for a nightmare inducing one, this way i can feel something this holiday season other that the crushing disappointment that father christmas didnt get me a big bag of cash again.

I might do a piece on horror games, there have been many over the years, some of which are more terrifying than you could imagine. I may even play the game of the grudge but at the moment im looking forward to dead space 2, at least viceral games know what to give their fans.

3 comments:

  1. "Japanese, heck, asian filmmakers in general have worked out that the things we DONT see can be horrifying!"

    American film-makers worked this out too. A Hollywood director, in fact, who goes by the name of Steven Spielberg. After they couldn't get the Jaws shark to work properly they just cut it from lots of scenes and decided that seeing it rarely was much scarier than seeing it a lot.

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  2. thats a good point, bit of an exaggeration on my part there, but i've yet to see a western horror that really gets to me like the grudge (apart from the blair witch project, of course)

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  3. A load of the old 70s American horror really gets to me. I don't know what it is... Something about the crude, unclear visual quality and the coarse sound effects which makes it all feel a bit nightmarish. In fact it reminds me of a specific nightmare I had as a child so maybe that's got something to do with it.

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