One of the leading creative forces behind the original J-horror craze of the early 2000s, Takashi Shimizu (Ju-On: The Grudge, The Grudge, The Grudge 2) is back with his latest release, Suicide Forest Village. And Shimizu doesn’t stray far from his wheelhouse. A second installment of a planned trilogy of thematically-related movies, Shimizu follows his […]
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With the What We Do In the Shadows and Creepshow adapted series enjoying success, it’s not surprising streaming platforms would start scouring horror intellectual properties for their next potential hit. Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine there was much demand to re-visit the Ju-On franchise. Both the original Ju-On and its original remake are decent if […]
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Japanese horror, particularly during the aughts, set a high bar for horror movie creepiness. In the late 1990s, Hideo Nakata and Takashi Miike gave us Ringu and Audition, respectively. Only a few years later, Nakata followed up Ringu with one of the better supernatural horror movies that decade – Dark Water. Like Nakata’s Ringu, Kiyoshi […]
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For a brief period of time, Hollywood studios were obsessed with Japanese horror. What followed was a glut of J-horror remakes that quickly saw diminishing returns. Things started off promising with the successful, and very scary, The Ring remake in 2002. Though The Grudge remake made money at the box office, critics were less impressed […]
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Following the success of The Ring, Hollywood spent several years combing the J-horror catalogue for remakes. Most of these American J-horror remakes were, for lack of a better word, horrible. Takashi Shimizu’s The Grudge, a remake of his own Ju-On, didn’t wow critics, but got audiences into theatres. Now that Hollywood has remade just about […]
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In addition to ‘Torture Porn‘ and remakes, the early 2000’s was defined by a brief fascination with J-horror. As compared to Saw and the movies it inspired, Japanese horror, or J-horror, dismissed gore in favour of atmosphere. With its stories of ghosts, or Yurei, and haunted technology, J-horror was stylistically unique. Everything from use of […]
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‘Torture Porn’, J-horror, found-footage, and remakes. At the turn of the century, these were the major trends that would define horror for several years. Though remakes were nothing new in Hollywood, studios seemed particularly interested in ransacking 70’s and 80s horror catalogues. Sadly, most of these remakes were watered-down PG-13 knock-offs starring CW Network cast-off’s. […]
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