Nightmare Japan

Over the last two decades, Japanese filmmakers have produced some of the most important and innovative works of cinematic horror. At once visually arresting, philosophically complex, and politically charged, films by directors like Tsukamoto Shinya (Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1988] and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer [1992]), Sato Hisayasu (Muscle [1988] and Naked Blood [1995]) Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Cure [1997], Seance [2000], and Kairo [2001]), Nakata Hideo (Ringu [1998], Ringu II [1999], and Dark Water [2002]), and Miike Takashi (Audition [1999] and Ichi the Killer [2001]) continually revisit and redefine the horror genre in both its Japanese and global contexts. In the process, these and other directors of contemporary Japanese horror film consistently contribute exciting and important new visions, from postmodern reworkings of traditional avenging spirit narratives to groundbreaking works of cinematic terror that position depictions of radical or `monstrous? alterity/hybridity as metaphors for larger socio-political concerns, including shifting gender roles, reconsiderations of the importance of the extended family as a social institution, and reconceptualisations of the very notion of cultural and national boundaries.ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: `New Waves?, Old Terrors, and Emerging Fears Guinea Pigs and Entrails: Cultural Transformations and Body Horror in Japanese Torture Film Cultural Transformation, Corporeal Prohibitions and Body Horror in Sato Hisayasu's Naked Blood and Muscle Ghosts of the Present, Spectres of the Past: The kaidan and the Haunted Family in the Cinema of Nakata Hideoand Shimizu Takashi A Murder of Doves: Youth Violence and the Rites of Passing in Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema Spiraling into Apocalypse: Sono Shion's Suicide Circle, Higuchinsky's Uzumaki and Kurosawa Kiyoshi's Pulse New Terrors, Emerging Trends, and the Future of Japanese Horror CinemaWorks Cited and Consulted Index