Ghost in the Well: The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan

(Paperback)

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Ghost in the Well is the first study to provide a full history of the horror genre in Japanese cinema, from the silent era to Classical period movies such as Nakagawa Nobuos Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (1959) to the contemporary global popularity of J-horror pictures like the Ring and Ju-on franchises. Michael Crandol draws on a wide range of Japanese language sources, including magazines, posters and interviews with directors such as Kurosawa Kiyoshi, to consider the development of kaiki eiga, the Japanese phrase meaning "weird" or "bizarre" films that most closely corresponds to Western understandings of "horror". He traces the origins of kaika eiga in Japanese kabuki theatre and traditions of the monstrous feminine, showing how these traditional forms were combined with the style and conventions of Hollywood horror to produce an aesthetic that was both transnational and peculiarly Japanese. Ghost in the Well sheds new light on one of Japanese cinema's best-known genres, while also serving as a fascinating case study of how popular film genres are re-imagined across cultural divides.

Reviews

An engrossing, insightful celebration of Japans rich horror-film history, a saga shaped by war, military occupation, time-honored tales, and innovative artists who remain largely unknown abroad. * Cineaste *
Crandols research is firmly grounded in meticulous citation of relevant Japanese-language sources. * Monumenta Nipponica *
Moving beyond the usual suspects of internationally acclaimed turn-of-the-millennium J-horror flicks, Michael Crandols groundbreaking study of the transnational history of the horror film in Japan plunges us into the very bowels of the kitschy, wonderfully creepy, sometimes terrifying, always thrilling realm of the perennially popular Japanese cinema of the strange. -- Adam L. Kern, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
A welcome challenge to the prevailing notion that genres such as supernatural horror should only be understood in Western terms. -- Jasper Sharp, Independent scholar, UK

Author Bio

Michael Crandol is an assistant professor of Japanese studies at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is the author of several articles on the history of Japanese horror film, including a chapter in The Japanese Cinema Book (British Film Institute, 2020).