J-horror
Geek obsession: J-horror
Why it’s daunting: The cottage industry of J-horror remakes spawned by the successful Americanization of Ringu in 2002 has both sparked an interested in J-horror—the name usually given to a continuing wave of Japanese horror films that began appearing in the mid-‘90s—and hastened its creative decline. Why bother tracing the roots of those creepy hitch-stepped specters when they’ve been so thoroughly played out in facsimiles starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (The Grudge), Kristen Bell (Pulse), Amber Tamblyn (The Grudge 2), Shannyn Sossamon (One Missed Call), and other quivering Hollywood starlets? Also: With extreme horror maestro Takeshi Miike turning out six gut-wrenching movies a year at his most prolific, who has the time and intestinal fortitude to keep up the pace?
Possible gateway: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse.
Why: Let’s be honest: The most natural gateway (for American audiences, at least) into J-horror is The Ring, the first and still most successful translation of J-horror tropes for mainstream audience. If you liked The Ring—or if you didn’t, for that matter—you could go back and watch the Japanese original and its sequels, and keep pulling on the sweater until the whole movement unravels before you. Pulse isn’t necessarily the easiest place to start, due to a plot that slips into apocalyptic abstraction, but there are at least three good reasons to confronts its challenges: