Takashi Shimizu

I have been a fan of the American horror movie since around birth, or at least that's how I tell it. American horror movies come in all different flavors, including; slashers, demons, and zombies. We here in America rely on super expensive special effects and a TON of gore factor.

Over the recent years, however, I (along with many others) have been seeing a growing trend in the melding of the Japanese horror style with American. The Japanese don't use high budget special effects and they seem to generate the same amount, if not more, of fear and terror that our American films do.

You see, the thing is, we as Americans have lost sight of what makes a good horror movie. In fact, we are so pressed for a good old fashioned scare that we have actually remade classics like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and now even Halloween is being remade. We haven't stopped there either! We have remade Ju-on as The Grudge, Ringu as The Ring, and even Kairo as Pulse.

Yes, for the most part we did use the original directors and writers... Well, Gore Verbinski remade The Ring, but The Ring 2 was Hideo Nakata.

Japanese horror is just plain creepy. It is more of a traditional horror that involves, mainly, ghosts and curses. The Japanese, though, have mastered what used to be an American institution and I have nothing but thanks to offer them. The movies are a hell of a lot more scary, the cinematography has that old horror movie feel without trying to, and their lower budget effects are just plain unsettling.