R: Japanese Horror Films

Notable Japanese Horror Films

Ugetsu (1953)

Godzilla (1954)

The Ghosts of Kasane Swamp (1957)

The Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)

Jigoku (1960)

Attack of the Mushroom People (1963)

Kwaidan (1964)

Onibaba (1964)

Gamera (1965)

Black Cat (1968)

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968)

Kuroneko (1968)

Blind Beast (1969)

Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion (1972)

Guinea Pig (1985)

Entrails of a Virgin (1986)

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

Hiruko the Goblin (1991)

All Night Long (1992)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1992)

Cure (1997)

Ring (1998)

Audition (1999)

Tomie (1999)

Wild Zero (1999)

Battle Royale (2000)

Uzumaki (2000)

Versus (2000)

Pulse (2001)

Dark Water (2002)

Suicide Club (2002)

Ju-On: The Grudge (2003)

One Missed Call (2003)

Kibakichi (2004)

Marebito (2004)

Premonition (2004)

Infection (2005)

The Neighbor No. 13 (2005)

R: Japanese Horror research

Japanese horror is noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of horror genre. Japanese horror tends to focus on psychological horror hence why I wanted to explore j-horror as I can use techniques from them to deliver a unsettling horror film. They also build tension and suspense particularly involving ghosts and poltergeists, while many contain themes of folk religion such as: possession, shamanism, exorcism, precognition and yokai.

Yōkai (妖怪, ghost, phantom, strange apparition) are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits and demons in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "bewitching; attractive; calamity;" and "spectre; apparition; mystery; suspicious". They can also be called ayakashi (妖), mononoke (物の怪), or mamono (魔物). Yōkai range diversely from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them. Often they possess animal features (such as the Kappa, which is similar to a turtle, or the Tengu which has wings), other times they can appear mostly human, some look like inanimate objects and others have no discernible shape. Yōkai usually have spiritual or supernatural power, with shapeshifting being one of the most common. Yōkai that have the ability to shapeshift are called bakemono (化物) / obake (お化け). 

Sakkaku Final Poster

As you can see we changed A LOT with our poster design, however, we still kept with the convention of having an extreme close up of the eye! we overlapped the branches images on top of the eye to create this veiny skin like texture. It makes the eyes more animalistic but also inter winning with nature and the possible routes of the narrative as it is a sub genre of a psychological horror and scientific horror. The Japanese text title supports the Japanese horror convention of having a red bold text (Japanese characters) which can connote death, danger, fear etc. although Japanese text is typically positioned vertically on the side of the poster we instead did this with 'SAKKAKU' as it is the pronunciation of the Japanese characters.Conventionally we put a Universal front for the institution information which makes our poster look like a real film poster.

P: Audience reaction and feedback on Sakkaku RAW footage

P: Poster feedback

P: Costume list

Costume list from Aniqa Khanum

P: draft poster

This is one of the posters I drew, I was influenced by Ringu, The Eye and Jeepers Creepers as they all went along with the horror conventions e.g. close up of an eye, textured skin which gives off an unsettling feeling as it looks so real.

This is another poster created, which also adhered to the horror poster conventions.