Ok, to say the least asian horror has been kicking our ass in the genre for a long time. all we do to counteract it is remake all there movies using the same directors. The sad part is the asian version is always better but we keep on doing it. where has originality gone? In the 1980's we had amazing horror films, cheesy yes, gore filled yes, great, fuck yeah. where have we gone since then? Remake after remake. Does the grudge need 2 sequals just because some asian director did them first? NO. The only thing Sam Rami has done in horror lately is make asian film remakes so what the hell. Did Spiderman make him soft or what? I'm happy to see that He is doing drag me to hell, it has been a long time coming. with people like Clive barker and Sam raimi, we should be doing films on our own accord not following in others footsteps. Michael Bay is getting all the money to remake American horror classics with his own spin on them but when will we see something new? It is time we retake horror and bring new blood to the big screen. I think "midnight meat train" and "Drag me to hell" is just what we needed to get things going again. How about you.
Re: Asian horror vs. American horror
The Asian market only kills us in telling Ghost Stories.
Re: Asian horror vs. American horror
I love this discussion.
Ghosts -- Japan especially has done years of films on ghosts. It is interesting to see that in the 1950's and 1960's, their ghosts were spirits of nature, e.g. Fox Spirits, River Spirits, and others you would see in Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" Over the last, say, 15 years, the Japanese have put the ghosts into the machines (Pulse -- Computers, Ringu -- VHS and TV, etc.). As was pointed out above, this is a cultural thing you are more than likely to find in Asia. US ghosts haunt house and make Jack Nicholson use an axe rather than a doorknob.
American Studios remake movies for one reason only -- Money. The cries for creativity are currently falling on deaf ears. A film must have a audience out there waiting for that film to come out. That is why there are Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, Scooby-doo movies, Saw 27, etc. There is already a guaranteed audience out there. They can make a profit on the film within the first two weeks, before word gets out that the film bites. Then, they mothball it for six months and release it on DVD and profit again. Every studio head wants Avatar, and not the Return of the Secaucus Seven.
Are there bad foreign horror movies? Of course there are. You do realize that the BBC doesn't just show Masterpiece Theater? They have their shares of stupid programming that they are probably glad the Americans know nothing about.
Not everything is Ichi the Killer and Ju-on and Shutter. There is Junk, Everybody Fights as well.
RE: Asian horror vs. American horror
Ah- I agree with you all the way. If a movie isn't broken- don't try and fix it...hahaa! I've never really been completely thrilled with American re-makes of Asian horror films. And I agree with you about Raimi and Barker- I loved both of their newest additions to the horror world.
The Academy Awards did What?!
I saw the academy awards this year and they had a segment called "A Tribute to Horror."
I was surprised.
I was excited.
And eventuyally I was disappointed.
It was 2 AND A HALF minutes filed with short clips of: Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Texas Chainsaw
Mixed in with American remakes like: The Ring, and The Grudge
And God help me, they had the nerve to put in clips of Twilight, New Moon, and Harry Potter movies!
Sure, they put in a few clips that were worthy of being REAL thrillers, but my point of all this was that the Oscars didn't really "tribute" horror at all, but exposed how out of touch hollywood has become with the genre.
That's a bad sign for us horror fans over here in the U.S.
Personally, I believe we shouldn't sub-divide the whole horror genre into countries because after all we'll eventually be disappointed by one thing or another.
After all we're all horror fans, not gang members.
SDZ
Re: Asian horror vs. American horror
Asian horror is awesome. So cerebral! I love it! Anyone ever played that Asian horror video game series, Fatal Frame? That game is creepy as hell!
Reply
Eh, I'm not too biased when it comes to the whole horror situation, because I find small things in every horror movie that is good and bad. It matters not to me. I'm one of those fans that like the craftwork of most horror movies. Yeah, story is good, but so is a good scene in a movie, which some of these so called " bad movies" have within them. I was watching a pretty cool ghost movie called " The Echo". It had the whole feel of a Japanese horror movie. I felt that, at any moment, they would start talking japanese. And I wasn't too impressed with Drag Me To Hell, to be honest. It was more corny than scary. It was a good movie, I won't deny that, but didn't seem all that scary. I think we should just be happy that we're still getting horror movies, regardless if it is something we don't like. People have different tastes when it comes to horror movies. And the reason why these movies are badly done by americans is because they're mostly based on visual scares, rather than emotional scares, which alot of japanese horror moves on.
Re: Asian horror vs. American horror
Asian Horror films are great the problem is when we try to remake them i think we really mess them up
Asian vs American
I agree with most of the comments here I like foreign movies but I dont think we need to Americanize all these movies I did ling The Ring a lot better than Ringu(or any of the bizaare sequels I didnt like The Grudge though I must admit because Ive never seen Ju-on
Then there are the ones by Nikkatsu production which I do love The Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police which were made for Americanaudiences. But I wouldnt want to see them re-done in America. We have a different take on things and our movies reflect just like Asian or Italian etc reflect theirs-The exception being Lucio Fulci- His stuff was awesome but Im not sure whether he was trying to reflect italian or American films
my 2 cents
my 2 cents, pretty simple, america find ANYTHING they can get there hands on that did well in other countries and then try to make it there own, its like they have NO respect whatsoever for the films and shows that they completely rape when trying to remake. when it comes to horror they steal from the japanese, when it comes to comedy and drama shows they steal from the UK, they dont seem to be able to have a thought of there own anymore, i even saw that they are trying to remake shameless for american TV...... why? if you have seen the original shameless series you will know that its not the kind of show you can remake, and not only that but they have even messed with the structure of what made the show so great in the first place, too drama-ish when its supposed to be mostly comedy, same with skins, spaced, life on mars, absolutely fabulous, they even tried to remake red dwarf back in the day, and in the end needed some of the english actors from the original show to be in it and help out.... that failed miserably, replacing the main black character with a white guy and the black male cat with a white female....... yeah because thats how its done..... america, the country without any pride.
Re: Asian horror vs. American horror
"I believe if you treat your audience with respect, you'll get the payoff," he maintains. "Unfortunately, the studios don't think American audiences are intelligent enough to follow a movie plot that's not American. There's a lack of respect by Hollywood studios that, in the end, irritates people. They change the flow of a movie, the intent of a scene; you change the original director's vision, and you end up with trash."~David Leong
Atleast the remakes give the popularity to the originals in which some smarter American folk can appreciate the true meaning of the movie and can follow the plot.
I don't like Australian or very many English made horror movies.
Pages
Add new comment