It's Junji Ito. The constant comparisons between him and Lovecraft are for the negatives alongside the positives. His writing is bad fanfic-level (or else his translator is) and his plots are schizophrenic, but that's not why people read Ito. It's for the iron-hard conceptual grasp of horror and the gratuitous art. If you're looking for the subtle prose of a master above all else he's just not for you.
However, I think his shlock demonstrates the heart of horror as a genre, something that is forgotten by almost all its creators. The b-horror movie is not a coincidence. Writing and plotting are secondary to horror, almost uniquely among genres. Horror is all on the conceptual level and the morbid fascination of having nightmare fuel put before your eyes. Friday the 13th works because someone slaughtering you and all your young friends getting drunk and fucking in the woods is a thought that most people have had at least passingly. The Thing works because Antarctica's barrenness is fascinating all on its own, and because you're never quite sure of the people around you. Saw works because everybody who's ever been around a machine tool has had a moment where they look at their fingers and really see all the joints and sections for the first time. Martyrs or Hostel work because some small part of your mind wants to go on r/watchpeopledie and look through the top posts, even though you know that's a bad idea. Dawn of the Dead and zombie movies in general tend to break the mold by including a degree of power fantasy with the violence and the criticism of society, but that can all come crashing down as demonstrated by the anti-power fantasy of Day of the Dead.
Those are the two real subgenres of horror: splatter and nightmares.
So you've got Ito. Spoilers for all his stories follow, by the way. Enigma of Amigara fault is barely even a fucking story, but it's the one he's arguably best known for. And it's as simple as it gets: Claustrophobia. Forced supernatural claustrophobia, but claustrophobia all the same. It even shows you the damn twist half way through the story in a nightmare and then immediately repeats it, but god if it doesn't get in your head and stick there
Hellstar Remina goes completely the other way into surrealism. Claustrophobia is a concrete fear, but the true fear represented in this is the old Lovecraftian ideal of total helplessness, except it goes way more direct than Lovecraft ever did. The worst Lovecraft ever said was "mankind is unimportant and will always be unimportant". Ito here is saying "mankind is unimportant and the Destroyer is coming next Tuesday to crack the Earth like a jawbreaker, which you can see happening with a backyard telescope to the other planets". Sure, Remina is personally in danger of being raped and sacrificed, but that doesn't extend to the reader all that much. Which is why the story keeps going round and round away from her to show people getting fucked over trying to solve this impossible question of how to survive.
Uzumaki goes for a blend of the Enigma style and the Hellstar style. Something utterly supernatural happening not to the world but to a small group of people, who are caught up in it and have no recourse at all. The true spiral is the narrative one, a death spiral surrounding the characters and dooming them before the story even begins. And much like Dawn of the Dead it shows society going kind of crazy resisting, exploiting, and accepting the spiral in its various forms. The "central plot" is nothing more than the final one, of some poor fools who didn't have the decency to surrender while the getting was good and drew it out for everybody. But in the end the spiral is absolute. It is carved into the bones of the universe, and it sucks them all down like it always was going to.
Then we have Gyo. I thought Gyo was alright, but I do agree with you that it's on the weak side for Ito. Gyo is like Saw or perhaps closer to Hostel in that it's full on body horror. With Uzumaki there was more mystery. Sure, there was body horror aplenty, but it was a spiral to unravel (the spiral's end is the spiral's end is the spiral's end is the) while Gyo just flat out shoves ZOMBIE LANDSHARKS OH GOD EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE SHIT at you. There's a bit of confusion there, I think, between the zombie movie style of "monsters are everywhere and nobody knows why, now shut up and fight and take your due from our exploitative society while you're at it, and do all those other things you deny yourself because of societal constructs too" with the grander "the Japanese didn't make these things, they fucking found them, what forbidden knowledge lies beneath the waves?". And then this already precarious balance goes crashing into "and now the machines are going to physically violate you and make you live forever smelling rot gas with a giant tube shoved in your ass". And crashes a little more at the very end with "ALIEN WORLD MAYBE".
Gyo does all those individual things well enough, but I think Ito's plot schizophrenia took a bridge too far in letting it reach beyond the limits of a single horror style and eventually grabbing all of the ones he uses at once.
I must interject as I'm duty bound to argue my case for the genre of horror, having been a student of literary horror. I think you're really short-selling it, especially as now I write my dissertation on Lovecraft
His writing is bad fanfic-level (or else his translator is)
THIS IS MY POST
IT WAS MADE FOR ME
Writing and plotting are I argue, not secondary on the conceptual level as the morbid fascination of having nightmare fuel put before your eyes. This is most especially true for the post /b/tard generation, for whom well-executed concepts will horrify more than a display of the concept or a display of gore. It is something I think horror producers are in the right to remember - not right to forget. Horror is not a vicarious exposure to danger in a safe space, this feeling is more at home with the thriller genre. That feeling of adrenaline, immersing yourself into a medium of suspense and danger, feeling threatened without ever putting yourself at real risk - not horror, but a thriller.
Also notable, horror inspires deep fear, revulsion, anxiety, panic and deep settlement - but each of these things can be inspired independently, and so for example what inspires fear and scares us need not necessarily be horror.
Horror owes a lot to its conceptual premise, but contrary to putting nightmares before your eyes - horror is what you don't see, the cerebral implication that leaves dangerous ambiguity scarred into your mind. Fear is your Uncle dropping you in a sewer only for you to see a venomous centipede emerge from the darkness and into the light to sniff you out, horror is waking up covered in lubricant trying to figure out what the hell has been done to you, fear is in walking through the woods when you hear a wolf howl, horror is in knowing your daughter is alone in the woods when you hear a wolf howl.
To generalize, horror is an implication shown, internalized in the brain of the audience, attacking/subverting the audience or something the audience cares about.
Friday the 13th works because the characters are all isolated, and beginning to realize someone amongst them is murdering. The audience doesn't know who is murdering whom, as the camera is always focuses on the point of view of the murderer when the killer strikes. Piece by piece it feeds the audience information after first leaving them in a state of confusion, letting them discover that Mrs. Voorhees has been hunting them down, punishing them for having sex, hearing the voices of her dead son calling for help, being driven to punish everyone who failed her son. The horror comes from the implications, as one of the victims hears the sound of a child and (is attacked by boy Jason at the end of the film) yet no explanation is given to this whatsoever, and further from the implication attached to the audience - an audience living right at the peak of the sexual revolution, of what should ever happen if seemingly dead movements come back to punish them for their sexual promiscuity. The focus is not on the spectacle of slaughter, but on the characters trying to figure out why they are being slaughtered. What violence is used is used tactically to reinforce the horror's themes, such as when Bill's corpse is found with arrows embedded ranging from his eye to his genitals. Make the audience ashamed of their own sexuality, capitalize on their anxiety, exploit it and strike nerves: Horror
This is of course in contrast with the later Friday 13th Films which are made with the mindset of having a slasher monster running around hacking apart skimpy, horny teenagers. They might scare someone, but for the most part the films know what their audience are coming to see: slaughter, sex and a monster. This is what makes a campy slasher film, which can be fun, but it doesn't really inspire horror in anyone.
The Thing works because it's running multiple layers, the first is the bleak expanse of the Antarctic borrows from an old fear: Mankind's powerlessness in the face of primal nature.
Man proposes, God disposes.
The second is the paranoia, you've got many people stuck together, they don't know who's been infected, nor does the audience - and they could snap at any moment, desperately trying to figure out who's been where for how long doing what.
The third is the Thing. It's just the Thing.
As far as monsters go it's great for horror. The speed at which it mutates, the way the camera lets you see each flagellating mutating bit without ever getting to focus on it too long, it entrenches itself in your short-term memory but you can't make sense of it. This is how it goes down with the characters and audience alike: See the Thing, not understand what the Thing is, kill the Thing, still not understand what the Thing is. Human biology no longer sacred, only the Thing.
I won't go so far as to say Saw works, because it falls flat in a lot of places, but the premise of two innocent men being locked together and forced to kill one another/cut off limbs in order to save those they hold dear is a good horror concept. As an aside, the film was pretty meh - entertaining enough to be watchable but not something I'd go out of my way to watch with eagerness. The irony is is that the critics' reaction that the movie was the work of someone depraved, that the film was gratuitous and cruel even for the most avid horror fans, was really what made the film. No jokes, the actual Saw film is about as good
as the spongebob version (the spongebob version follows the movie script), but because the critics gave the film this occult status of gore and cruelty, it naturally drew in the edgelord market and so spawned a long franchise of scared people running inside of traps. Bit like Friday 13th really, only the boobytrap version of slasher gore. I think it's useful in showing how a good concept with poor writing and plotting takes away the teeth of a movie - watch Oldboy to see a horror with a similar concept to Saw done exceptionally well.
Hostel works because the characters are young, wealthy, American men, living by the creed that money buys illicit pleasures and there's no price too great nor any pleasure too illicit, in the desire for gratification of all kinds. What happens abroad stays abroad, wink wink nudge nudge, but of course what happens when the men who'll use foreign women willingly to indulge in their own pleasure encounter intrepid business people willing to do the same to them? It is a sillier, happier version of
Videodrome, more grounded in the fears of everyone who has or has had family who enjoy going abroad for pleasure-seeking, worrying to never return.
Zombies do not horrify when they include the ordinary person becoming a ninja samurai warrior knight eliminating all of their rivals in the old world, old society, and new world and new society. This is why imo 28 days later takes the cake for zombie horror films,
in particular this scene (obv spoilers) showcases a little bit of everything why. Society breaks down and everything sucks. There are no families or friends to fall back to, no companies, police or services to enlist in, no religion or culture or nation that can help you, you're all alone. Fighting the infected isn't even a realistic option as unsurprisingly, getting into a fight without getting a drop of their blood on you, or getting a scratch, is very difficult for an ordinary person. Unlike most zombie films where the military dies immediately while civilians go on, in 28 days later the military is the last real presence of humanity, which of course causes some severe friction when our civilian protagonists (who have hitherto been surviving pretty commendably) find themselves in the safe arms of the strong. The horror comes around when the realization hits that upon the breakdown of society, we return to the tribal unit of organization, where the strong rule over the weak. Needless to say, the horror in that scene does not come from the zombies attacking the military, it comes from the civilian women attempting to conceal their stress when the soldiers start talking about the importance of repopulating the island. Remember! Horror of the implications leading to realization! The characters and audience are capable of gradually figuring out the soldiers are going to continually rape the characters they have come to be familiar with and empathize with.
Horror is a wide genre in its own right, with many sub-genres. But all successful ones will likely have some things in common, whether they're about serial killers trying to live in a multicultural West that resents their morality (K-Shop), psychological monster horrors about the travails of single mother households and the anxiety of those on the brink of murder-suicide (Babadook), or a crew trapped in space being hunted down by a phallic alien parasite (alien). Whether it is in literature, a video game or movie, you've got to have personality in your horror narrative. The characters, the setting, it's got to have character - and this applies to a horror whether it's the victims or perpetrators, if neither the victims nor the perpetrator have character, then the audience doesn't care what happens to them and so aren't involved. If the audience aren't involved, then they won't be doing any self-reflection and won't be deeply affected by what they've consumed. This is immediately what separates any horror narrative from a B-plot one, where in the latter they just want to use gory imagery to elicit the same responses of revulsion through some quick imagery, tension, scares and gore, but it won't elicit horror because the audience isn't involved with the character of the horror.
There's a great story from /tg/ about a group of roleplayers playing an evil campaign of D&D. The group consisted of a barbarian cannibal, a witch that poisoned wells on a whim, and a wizard whose ambitions spanned world conquest. That left the last player: A simple rogue.
In their down-time in between questing, the group did as they wish in a city the wizard intended to take over. The barbarian started an underground fighting-ring and ate the losers, the witch and wizard joined their scholarly heads together to begin experimenting on slaves, while the rogue started hiding - watching a young girl from the distance. Because the rogue never revealed his intentions, because the rogue never did anything but hide and stalk this girl - the other 3 were unnerved, both in character and out of character, and said that the rogue player was fucked in the head.
Remember: Much horror comes from ambiguity and unknown implications.
The game's DM, as if to dissuade the rogue, described the girl's life as incredibly mundane and uneventful. She awoke every morning, ate breakfast and went to the academy to study. After classes, returned home, had dinner, studied some more and went to sleep. The rogue watched, doing nothing. The girl occasionally looked around, imagining someone was watching - but never could pass the spot checks to find the rogue.
After six-months of in-game time, the barbarian had amassed a small army of cannibalistic gladiators, the witch had successfully started a demonic hybrid breeding project, and the wizard had infiltrated the High Council of the City and began administering an addictive drug amongst its members. Meanwhile the rogue had over the course of six months learned the girl's name, her favorite foods, saw which students she got along with and even got a good idea of which boys fancied her.
By the time the wizard had assumed control over the city, his player knew that the little girl wanted to study exotic plants, especially flowers. The academy that he now had complete control over was her favorite place in the world, and her worst fear was that something bad might happen to it.
The witch had minor demons impregnating slaves in secret chambers within the sewers, with many of their monstrous offspring spilling forth into the streets above. A few of these chambers were close to the streets the witch had learned the young girl took to school, and the witch began to worry about what should happen should one of the monsters come out in broad daylight.
The barbarian had been tracked down by a trio of bastards he had sired many years ago, each of them seeking to murder the father that abandoned them so long ago. After the barbarian finished killing and devouring them, he knew less about his own sons than he did of the girl the party's rogue had for reasons unknown, decide to follow.
After so long, the party began to suspect the rogue wasn't evil at all, and was just practicing his stealth - after all this time he hadn't done anything to interact with this girl whatsoever besides be as close as possible without being noticed. The rogue doesn't deny this. The Academy was provided with extra funding, with a set of green houses built for the exclusive use of the students. The demon blood experiments were put under close supervision, with nightly patrols to eradicate escaped specimens. The barbarian simply approached the confused girl, offering her a rare potted plant cupped in his massive hands, stating that if she ever wanted anything she could ask him for it.
After a while the wizard became a governor of the school, the witch following suit, and they all came to know the girl through more of their own interactions than the rogue's observations. As they grew closer to this student, it became harder and harder to conceal their villainous activities - and so they started to shut down their more obvious and immoral activities one by one. The DM is pleasantly surprised at how he managed to turn the evil campaign into a neutral, possibly even good campaign - when the rogue's player laughs, and says he had no intention. He tells the DM how his character silently emerges from the shadow and stabs the girl in the neck.
Needless to say, writing is of paramount importance to the horror genre. The activities of all the other party members is conceptually horrifying; forcible impregnation by demons, cannibal barbarians forcing you to fight for your life or be eaten, shadowy supernatural forces conspiring with your government to brainwash everyone and assume control - but they do not inspire horror in the same way that some horror (heh) inflicted upon a developed character does. You've got to condition people to be scared of the concept you want them to fear, and that's not possible without the right development in character and plot sequence. But if you can - then you can do things like make people be scared of birds or politeness.
Then there's Ito :]
The Amigara Fault story's horrifying subtext is not claustrophobia, but the supernatural force that is compelling the people to jump into their hole. It's suicide. The characters are all alone, and the one time the main character meets a lovely lady and they begin to love one another, thinking that they don't have to get into the hole (commit suicide), she leaves, and then he follows. The compulsion, the call to the void, the will to destroy yourself, and the fear that you can't stop until you've succeeded. Replace the hole with something like a bridge or cliff, and the people shouting "This is my cliff, this is made for me, I must jump off this cliff..." would not change the theme of the story much. Besides the added layer of body horror sitting on the surface.
There's two layers of horror going on in Hellstar Remina, all being tied up in two narratives. Remina, the girl, Remina, the Hellstar. The planet is discovered coming in from a wormhole, making its discoverer famous - and to honour the birth of his daughter he names the star after her. It is fairly Lovecraftian in its use of imagery, of the vast planet of Remina operating on physics we don't understand, being of such a scale and purpose that humanity has no defence - but it's not entirely Lovecraftian, because the humans matter narratively, and most interesting of all are the silver linings attached. It's the kinda stuff you wouldn't find in a Lovecraft story.
The second layer of horror, above the horror of a cosmic destroyer, is the horror of fanboys. Also Remima is narrative Jesus Christ. Probably should've mentioned the latter first.
The art cover shows Remima strung up on the crucifix, and her narrative throughout the story matches this role.
She rises to fame out of sheer coincidence, being worshiped by much of the planet for no reason other than her name matching that of a shining star. She doesn't do anything but exist, yet fan clubs and sponsorship deals come popping up everywhere, everyone adoring her for being passive, pretty and existing on an auspicious time. Symbolically, her worshipers are going to be the cultists & mobs bringing her to be ritually executed. In the first part we meet all the vapid and cruel people of Earth, with few good characters beyond Remima, Yasumi and her father introduced. The ones that show signs of loving Remima indicate cruel sides the instance Remima indicates any resistance or disagreement with them, from private work stuff right down to personal, reputational and intimate relations.
Then Remima the Hellstar shows up, and the adoring mobs turn to zealous mobs, ready to torture her and her father to death in order to appease the Hellstar. Whether there is any connection between Remima and the Hellstar is unknown. The way the mobs attack it seems that there is no connection, but then when the cultist licks Remima at the same time as the Hellstar licks Earth, the cultist's tongue is the same as the Hellstar's. Likewise Remima survives in-numerous sheer coincidences, ranging from Earthquakes to Nuclear bombardment and Tsunamis. Through all this she's whipped, crucified, strung up next to a homeless vagrant, made to suffer, strung up by her burnt father with the homeless vagrant, born and destined to die to atone for mankind's sins, it's incredibly reminiscent of the Passion of the Christ. Remima even tries to get the homeless vagrant to stop trying to save her, to let her die and save his own skin, but through his selflessness he tries to defend her against the sum total of humanity.
Now if this was a Lovecraft story, chances are Remima would've been executed and nothing would have changed. Earth still would've been eaten, the sacrifice would've just been a nice little delusion humans invented to give hope in the end. But it's not - instead, the rich and cruel elites land upon the Hellstar and are violently consumed, the astronaut they thought was their long lost son was in fact just a puppet intended to lure them there. All of Earth is devoured, but amidst all the chaos a single significant piece of Earth breaks away and escapes into the void. Within this capsule is the homeless vagrant, who is revealed to be the long lost son who failed to become an astronaut (now ironically living his dream), Remima and two boys and two girls, who all seem to be good people based off of their jolly manners. With the final shot showing the crucifix of her dad drifting in space, the manga ends with an odd sense of hope. They've got 1 years worth of supplies in their pod, yeah sure they might all die, but they'll die happy & together, good and loving. If they happen to find an Earthlike planet somewhere out there, in all probability they'd never find such a thing - but they've already lived through so many miracles, so they've got "time enough to sit and pray for more" ;]
Meanwhile, what is the Hellstar? No one ever calls it the Hellstar, but that's the title. All we know is that it's a sapient planet from another dimension that disregards our universe's laws of physics, and it is not Lovecraftian in the sense that humans are irrelevant, because its massive eyes can see humanity. It is capable of observing the human astronauts and tricking more into landing on it. It knows where we are and savours devouring us. It eliminates all of mankind that gives into their baser instincts and ceases to defend the innocent. Where did the first cultists come from, why is their font so different from all others speaking, why does the cultist have the star's tongue?
Is the star from hell?
As an aside, Lovecraft has said worse. But I cannot digress, for lack of time ;[
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Topic: The Horror Thread (Read 36018 times)