Documentary

Vision

Masterclass:

1. J-Horror from Western Perspective

- Brief History of J-Horror in UK, how does it influences the horror film making in UK or Europe.

2. The Making of The J-Horror Virus in-depth

3. Q&A Session

DATE: 07 Oct 2023 (Sat), 10:00 - 11:30am

VENUE:

Japan Creative Center

4 Nassim Road, Singapore 258372

Free Admission

The J-Horror Virus

The story of how a single Japanese videotape changed the course of global horror history.

Description

The J-Horror Virus is a feature-length documentary charting the origins, evolution and diffusion across the world of a distinctive brand of made-in-Japan supernatural chillers that seeped into the global consciousness at the turn of the millennium, films featuring vengeful ghosts manifesting themselves through contemporary technology again a backdrop of urban alienation and social decay. From its origins in Teruyoshi Ishii’s 1988 fake documentary Psychic Vision: Jaganrei (1988) and Norio Tsuruta’s seminal Scary True Stories (1991/92) straight-to-video series, through such key titles as Hideo Nakata’s Ring (1998), Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse (2001) and Takashi Shimizu’s JuOn: The Grudge (2002), critics and the films’ makers reflect on how the bleak dystopic visions and unsettling atmospheres that made these works so unique infiltrated their way across the world.

The J-Horror Virus features interviews with Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse), Takashi Shimizu (the Ju-On series, Marebito), Rie Inoo (Ring), Takako Fuji (Ju-On), Masayuki Ochiai (Infection, Shutter), Shinya Tsukamoto (Marebito), Joji Iida (Spiral), Norio Tsuruta (Scary True Stories, Ring 0), Chiaki Konaka (Psychic Vision Jaganrei, Marebito), Mari Asato (Ju-On: Black Ghost, Bilocation), Teruyoshi Ishii (Psychic Vision: Jaganrei) as well as authors Tom Mes and Lindsay Nelson.

Details

Directed By

Sarah Appleton & Jasper Sharp

Featuring

SHIMIZU Takashi / KUROSAWA Kiyoshi / INOO Rie / TSUKAMOTO Shinya / Tom mes / Lindsay Nelson

About The Director

Sarah Appleton is a documentary filmmaker known for her 2021 co-directed feature The Found Footage Phenomenon, which charted the origins of the ‘found footage’ sub-genre of horror films. The documentary interviewed many key directors including The Blair Witch Project’s Eduardo Sanchez, Paranormal Activity’s Oren Peli and Cannibal Holocaust’s Ruggero Deodato. Sarah has recently produced and directed a feature documentary for Severin Films in the US entitled Damaged: The Very British Obscenity of David Hamilton-Grant, which was released summer 2023.

Jasper Sharp is a filmmaker, curator and author specialising in Japanese cinema. Jasper co-founded Midnight Eye, a website on Japanese film with Tom Mes in 2000. His book publications include The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (2003, joint written with Mes), Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema (2008) and The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema (2011). He is the co-director with Tim Grabham of The Creeping Garden (2014), a documentary about plasmodial slime moulds that won the Best Documentary Director award Fantastic Fest at that year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

Schedule