World of Horror

Ten thousand years ago years ago Stone Age people painted half-human/half-animal monsters on cave walls. Flash forward 100 centuries and filmmakers continue to scare the pants off viewers with images of gore and ghouls. But in the last five years the general audience's appetite for terror has increased exponentially.

In 2003 alone, some 300 horror flicks worldwide were released in theatres or re-released on DVD or video, including "House of the Dead" from Germany's Uwe Boll, Briton Danny Boyle's apocalyptic thriller "28 Days Later" and a litany of Hollywood-style offerings ("Darkness Falls" and "The Order"). When real life for many is scarier than anything on the silver screen, why is the lust for fear universal? And do the Japanese find different things scary than the Argentines? Is Indian horror vastly different from French?

When putting together his book Fear Without Frontiers (FAB Press, 2003), Steven Jay Schneider was surprised to learn that horror is just about the only cinematic genre that hasn't been co-opted by Hollywood. Tinseltown has usurped the kung fu genre, and even some Bollywood romances have a taste of the American romantic comedy. But from country to country, Schneider found, horror has retained "specific cultural conventions" -- from 1930s Mexican vampire movies to Austrian home-invasion flicks.

"There are some things that are capable of scaring mostly everyone, cross-culturally -- doppelgängers, being buried alive, castration anxieties, etc.," Schneider explains. "Mostly the types of themes and imagery that Freud wrote about."

But other scariness is very particular, such as Malaysian vampire films inspired by the folkloric figure the langsuyar (a creature who sucks the blood of children through an opening in her neck). And you won't find many zombie flicks in Indian horror because of the Hindu practice of cremation. "The Japanese have a number of horror films with vengeful female killers [including "Freeze Me" and "Odishon"],"says Schneider."This likely has a lot to do with the repression of certain aspects of female sexuality in Japanese society."

Japanese horror cinema has also taken a particularly violent turn (witness the bloodbath that was Shion Sono's "Suicide Club"), and some lay the blame directly on the country's prolonged financial slump. In a recent interview with horror-fan magazine Fangoria, Hideo Nakata, director of the smash hit "Ringu," said, "In Japan, we have a rising tide of children killing parents, parents killing children, as well as killer cults. Horror has changed greatly over the past 20 years. Young people have become accustomed to true terror."

Sam McKinlay, programmer for the Cinemuerte Festival in Vancouver (a film festival specializing in horror films) maintains horror is directly influenced by external events, even years after the fact. The Great Depression, for instance, produced versions of Hollywood horror classics: "Frankenstein," "Dracula," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Mummy."

"The first wave of slasher films ('Night of the Living Dead,' 'The Shining,' 'Halloween') were a response to the violence of Vietnam," he theorizes. "During Desert Storm, the new breed of funny, self-reflexive slasher films made its official comeback with 'Scream' and its sequels." This summer, immediately following the most recent war in Iraq, horror films took top spot at the box office with "Freddy vs. Jason," followed by "Jeepers Creepers II." Now ironic, tongue-in-cheek horror (of the "Scream" and "Freddy-and-Jason" variety) is being replaced by good, old-fashioned terror. The much-hyped remake of the brutal "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is now in theatres, and another prequel to what many consider the scariest movie of all time, "The Exorcist," is set for release next year.