folklore
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~ PART I ~ Karma, Impermanence, and the Shape of Suffering Thai folk horror does not begin with ghosts, curses, or transgression. It begins with order; not the reassuring order of safety or justice, but a deeper and far less comforting structure in which nothing is wasted, nothing disappears, and nothing escapes consequence. In this…
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~ PART I ~ THE INDONESIAN SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE To understand Indonesian horror, one must first abandon a deeply Western assumption: that the supernatural represents a break in reality. In Indonesian cosmology, spirits are not intrusions, they are not aberrations and they are not even necessarily hostile. They are simply there, occupying the same world as…
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Introduction: The Girl in the Third Stall There are few ghosts in the world as widely known, casually invoked, and quietly misunderstood as Hanako-san. In Japan, her name is whispered not in temples or abandoned tunnels, but in elementary schools. Not in the dark woods or on lonely highways, but in fluorescent-lit hallways that smell…
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Introduction: The Loneliest Urban Legend in Japan There are urban legends that feel theatrical. There are urban legends that feel cruel. And then there are a rare few that feel lonely; stories that don’t simply frighten you, but hollow something out inside your chest and leave it echoing for days afterward. Kisaragi Station (きさらぎ駅) belongs…
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Introduction – the Shape of a Modern Ghost Story There are some ghost stories that feel ancient, as though they have always existed. And then there are others that feel new; not in the sense that they were recently invented, but in the sense that they could only have come into being in the modern…
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Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) marks the third installment in the Ju-On series, but it’s the first to receive a wide theatrical release, both in Japan and internationally. It follows two earlier made-for-TV films, Ju-On: The Curse and Ju-On: The Curse 2 (both released in 2000), and continues their terrifying legacy. Written and directed by Takashi…
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~ A Guide for New and Die-Hard Fans Alike ~ Japanese horror cinema is rich, unsettling, and endlessly inventive; a genre where old spirits stalk new cities, technology becomes a conduit for the uncanny, and trauma seeps from the past into the present. No other national cinema fuses atmosphere, folklore, social anxiety, and experimental storytelling…
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Masato Harada’s Inugami stands apart from its flashier J-horror contemporaries like Ringu or Ju-On: The Grudge. While those films deliver quick, iconic scares and urban legends, Inugami unfolds as a slow-burning, rural folk horror, rooted deeply in Japanese tradition and the lives of a marginalized community. The result is a fascinating exploration of how horror…
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