Continuing from my previous guide on how to turn an awful japanese horror movie into a brilliant comedy…

Let’s face it — horror movies don’t make much sense. Personally I adore watching horror movies especially with my eyes closed, but as time goes by it seems that the producers/writers/directors don’t make much of an effort anymore. The perception, and rightly so is that Japanese/Korean ghost movies = instant hit. The last two good horror movies I watched were Ju-On (the original Japanese version) and Shutter, the awesome Thai movie. Coming in at third was The Eye. As for the rest, even though I enjoy scaring the crap out of myself, I wish that the people behind the movie would make the extra effort to make me wet my pants. Like Ju-On The Ring, where the girl climbed out of the tv screen and the well. That freaked me out for weeks.

Enough with the thesis. Where was I?

Oh yeah, The Plot. It’s shit. So let’s move on with three things often found in J-horror (or any kinds of pop horror movies) because recycling ideas is the new Britney Spears’ crotch.

1. Cause of Horror
2. Pointless Bits
3. Is This Stupidity?

1. Cause of Horror
Cliché of all cliché — there is a cause for everything, and this is painfully true in every awful Japanese horror movies. Even if the cause is not explained (maybe because they expect you to play the popular video game prior to watching the movie), there is a reason why this and why that. Why do parents dress their daughter’s corpse in red? Why the residents of an apartment block should not go out after 12? Why kok-staring villagers turn to killing machines when the siren is heard?

Sometimes the fallible reason could be as easy as this:

It doesn’t really explain why that turns them into zombies, but there you go.

2. Pointless Bits
Actually this is not limited to J-horror; in fact too many movies have pointless bits in them. Try as you might to seek answers (logical or otherwise) you just can’t solve the mystery of why the director choose to have those scenes in the movie. They are not explained, they don’t give the plot any credit, they just exist to draw your attention from whatever is happening, and sometimes they are in the form of semordnilap!

I don’t understand either.

3. Is This Stupidity?

‘Nuff said.

Forbidden Siren opens in Malaysia cinemas tomorrow. Go watch, if you are so inclined 😉

p/s: exercising my right to mock J-horror does not mean I will stop watching them 😛

More: ShaolinTiger

The most important thing when making a B-grade J-horror is to plan a movie loosely based on a popular video game. The looser, the loser, the better. Make the plot as unoriginal as you can, and with the investors’ approval because J-horror always sells, wield your imagination! Go wild, no holds barred.

But in any J-horror we always have the same characters, maybe different roles but since they all look the same to me, allow me to introduce the key characters:

The Father. He is the one who makes all the decisions in the household, including migrating his family to an isolated island where the people behave weirdly and stare kok at you at all time. Still he finds nothing wrong with it even though modern culture denotes that it is a recipe for impending disaster.

The Daughter. She is the one who actually takes care of the household because for some reason or the other, Japanese mothers have low high mortality rate. She has eyes straight out of Final Fantasy, she is usually of average height and slim build, and she is the one who just HAS to check out the source of weird creaks and screeches originating from various dark corners of a house/jungle. Almost needless to say, she is the heroine of the movie. Well, as heroine as a J-horror could produce.

The Mysterious Son. He who never speaks, stands like a timber, always manages to disappear even after being explicitly told to ‘don’t go too far away’, gazes and points his finger into empty space, basically the child you wish you never had. Why? Because if you have a child like that, be prepared to encounter a vengeful spirit at some point of your life. Why? Because J-horror says so.

So this is how your plot works:

So easy like grazing grass in a field of cows.

Next: The Mystery Unsolved.