J Horror

While fear and terror are universal aspects of horror across the globe, the genre of horror media shows several differences depending on the culture from which they originated. Western and Oriental horror specifically show several different trends in their stories, especially in the nature of demons and evil.

            Some of the main differences in Western and Oriental horror can be shown in the different views of dragons, which is tied to different views of nature. Western ideology views nature as something more disposable, something that must be conquered and subjected to your will. This stems from the harsher conditions of the land and ready availability of more land should specific land prove to be unusable. This as such reflects in the Western view of dragons, great beasts of the land, which are readily killed and defeated by the brave knights who stand against them. The oriental vision of nature instead views it as something that must be balanced, something that can be worked with as long as specific requirements are met. This reflected how many oriental countries, specifically Japan, had more limited land available, and plots for crops such as rice could not be easily replaced and moved. The Oriental vision of dragons differs therefore, instead being seen as mysterious beings that are not to be trifled with, and whose death can cause disastrous consequences and unbalance nature itself.

            This view of nature (and dragons) carries into horror genre. The Japanese manga, “The Enigma of Amigara Fault”, for example shows an imbalance in nature, an earthquake that reveals human shaped holes, which are shown to be punishments for criminals of the past, those who disrupted the natural order with their crimes. There is no fighting or even necessarily conflict, just retribution for disturbing order. This greatly differs from the traditional Western horror story, which usually involves the protagonist fighting and killing some sort of monster. The movie “Kwaidon” serves as a good example of this. The story involves a young man seeing a monster woman who promises not to kill him if he never talks about it; he later marries a mysterious woman and the two live happily until he mentions what happened on that nigh, whereupon she says it was she and leaves because he broke the promise. Overall, everything was good until he broke the balance by breaking his promise; she didn’t even kill him because she loved him and their children. As a kid, I heard the western version of this story, which was the same except both the woman and their children turned into horrible, jersey-devil-like monsters when he broke the promise, and he killed them and then went to jail for their disappearances. The western version retains the western vision of violence and the need to defeat what is perceived as evil.

            The differences in Western and Oriental horror can be seen in a myriad of aspects of their respective culture, but these differences may become less and less defined as cultures blend across the globe.