Kindred Spirits: Horror Beyond Japan

This section exists for the ghosts that do not speak Japanese but speak the same language of grief.

While this blog is rooted in Japanese horror, the stories that haunt me have never belonged to one country alone. Across East and Southeast Asia, filmmakers have been telling remarkably similar ghost stories for decades: tales of inherited trauma, spiritual contamination, forgotten rituals, silenced women, and the unbearable persistence of memory.

These films are not departures from J-horror.
They are its kindred spirits.

In Thai, Korean, Taiwanese, Indonesian, and Vietnamese horror, I find the same obsessions that define my love for Ringu, Ju-On, Kairo, and Noroi:

Curses that spread through families and communities
Spirits born from injustice rather than malice
Rituals that fail
Faith that falters
And the terrifying idea that some wounds do not heal… they only move on

This section is not about chasing trends or covering everything. It’s about tracing a shared spiritual lineage: how different cultures wrestle with the same fears through different myths, different gods, different ghosts.

Here you’ll find essays, spotlights, and reflections on films like Shutter, The Medium, The Wailing, Incantation, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, and others — always approached through the same lens as my Japanese horror writing: slowly, thoughtfully, and with deep respect for the traditions they come from.

Because horror does not stop at borders.
And neither do ghosts.

—Robyn 🕯️🌏🖤