spiritual horror
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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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Introduction At first glance, Koji Shiraishi’s Shirome (2010) looks like a joke. It opens not with dread or blood or ghostly imagery, but with rehearsal footage of a real-life J-pop idol group (Momoiro Clover Z) practicing choreography, laughing with one another, and nervously talking about their dreams of one day performing on Kōhaku Uta Gassen,…
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Koji Shiraishi’s Cult is a meta-found-footage fever dream that gleefully deconstructs both the conventions of Japanese horror and the spectacle-hungry media culture that surrounds it. Framed as a reality-TV ghost investigation, the film lures the viewer in with familiar tropes (cursed families, psychic exorcists, vengeful spirits) only to turn them inside out with bursts of…
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