Film-Philosophy 14.

1 2010

Review: Jay McRoy (2007) Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese

Horror Cinema. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Juneko J. Robinson
State University of New York at Buffalo

Despite the ubiquity of Japanese and Japanese-inspired horror films in recent

years, this genre has attracted surprisingly little in-depth critical analysis
from scholars. With Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror
Cinema Jay McRoy, author of the only other book-length treatment of
contemporary J-horror to date,1 has provided a much needed corrective to
this dearth of scholarly attention. Nightmare forces us to reconsider a genre
that many a jaded horror fan has accused of falling prey to the 'long-haired-
dead-wet-chick' formula and it does this by taking us on a tour through
some of Japan’s most innovative horror films. In doing so, McRoy reveals a
vibrant genre that is intensely experimental and rich in satire and allegory,
despite what might seem like the overexposure of its most well known
exemplars and their Westernised remakes.
It is axiomatic that horror films act as barometers for social anxiety.
However, the use of the body as a metaphor for larger socio-political
formalisms is hardly unique to Western cinema. According to McRoy, as
depicted in many J-horror films, the corporeal body represents the
transforming Japanese socio-political body in its response to its particular
historicity. Drawing from the works of thinkers such as Baudrillard, Deleuze,
Bataille, Žižek and Brecht, McRoy systematically examines an impressive
array of J-horror films, ranging from the notorious ‘guinea pig’ or torture

1
McRoy, Jay (2005) Japanese Horror Cinema. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press.

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films to the traditional ghost story, and he does so while avoiding getting
bogged down in too much plot detail. In addition, McRoy examines the
apocalyptic horror tale and bleak, nihilistic films featuring ‘dove-style
violence’, a term taken from the tendency of certain birds to peck to death
those members of its flock who appear different or weaker (11-12). What
emerges is an entertaining discussion of the horror film as a series of texts
firmly situated within contemporary Japanese political discourse. According
to McRoy, this discourse centres around shifting notions of collective
identity, the trauma of abrupt social change in an era of globalisation, and
the tension between the desire for social cohesion, and a return to origins
with a growing discontent concerning the more pathological aspects of
traditional conceptions of gender roles and social identity.
For McRoy, the depiction of the body transformed and torn asunder in
much J-horror is emblematic of the psychic transformations suffered by the
individual’s embodied psyche as well as Japan’s collective conscience.
According to McRoy, J-horror represents a filmic way for the Japanese to
deal with tremendous uncertainties associated with globalisation, the long
economic recession and a concomitant loss of optimism about the future, as
well as the shocking revelations of wartime atrocities committed by Japan’s
imperial forces during World War II, which have only recently been revealed
to the Japanese public. In addition, the legacy of Japan’s catastrophic defeat
at the end of World War II and the dropping of the A-bomb continue to
exert a palpable influence on Japanese horror.
While many film genres are capable of tackling such issues, the horror
genre in particular seems especially well suited to such critical introspection
due to its preoccupation with boundaries and their violation. According to
McRoy, the liminal physiognomies that frequently populate Japanese horror
films - from traditional notions of monstrosity to phantom-like entities and
dismembered bodies - are symbolic of the kind of cultural transformations
the Japanese have been forced to confront in the post-capitalist era (4). By
wrestling with Japan’s social and economic traumas through the symbolism
of the physical body or haunted home as a metaphor for the national body
and psyche, contemporary J-horror films depict ‘a larger socio-political body

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in a state of cultural crisis’ (4). Images of the transformation, disintegration

or dismemberment of the body reveal that traditionally held notions of
stable, fixed or ‘natural’ identities - whether national, cultural, or gendered -
are being seriously challenged within Japanese society.
Given this, such films are deeply and inherently political, insofar as
they concern Japanese identity at a historical point in time during which ‘the
artificiality of social, national, and physiological boundaries has never been
more apparent, and during which the desire to re-inscribe these borders has
never been…more apparent’ due to changing gender roles, the decline of the
extended family, and the reconfiguration of the very notion of national
boundaries due to the pervasiveness of technology in the late-capitalist era
(4).
As was the case for many other societies, the Japanese national
identity formed in reaction to forced encounters with Westerners and their
nineteenth century imperialist notions of the nation-state. Hence, McRoy is
quite right to point out that the idea of a distinctly and uniquely Japanese
national identity is itself a product of modernity (19). Part and parcel of the
development of a collective identity is a preoccupation with boundaries.
Indeed, all forms of nationalism involve the idea of a special and unique
people who possess a common memory of the past and a view of history,
which holds a distinctive role for them at its centre (Kohn 1965, 61). Like
many other societies, Japan has periodically embraced nationalism as a way
to defy encroaching Western imperialism. Yet, nationalism paradoxically
can also threaten the internal stability of a body politic. Because it entails
the construction of a largely illusory homogeneity (i.e., a monolithic unitary
identity that is shared by all), nationalism invariably involves the
concomitant designation of some individuals as ‘outsiders’ or a source of
foreign contagion, often provoking calls for the ‘cleansing’ or purging of the
undesired. Under such circumstances, pressures to conform present
individuals with few options for socially acceptable identities and personal
fulfilment. J-horror films reveal tremendous ambivalence on the part of
Japanese towards their contemporary predicament, exhibiting both

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nationalistic and critical stances toward Japanese society. The contemporary

Japanese horror film resides in the very midst of such debates.
Indeed, nowhere is such dialogue more apparent than in Japan’s
notorious ‘guinea pig’ films, which have been the source of moral panic on at
least three different continents over the years. It is a testimony to the
ingenuity of McRoy as a writer that he is able to discuss these films, which
may very well be the most challenging form of cinema extant, in a manner
that gives the reader some appreciation for what would otherwise be a
singularly unpleasant viewing experience. McRoy convincingly argues that
‘guinea pig’ or torture films, such as Satoru Ogura’s Devil’s Experiment
(Akura no jikken, 1985) and Hino Hideshi’s Flowers of Flesh and Blood (Za
ginipiggu: Akuma no jikken, 1985), both of which explicitly depict
dismemberment and vivisection, provide insight into ‘shifting conceptions of
corporeal, social and national cohesion, as well as raise questions about the
dynamics of film spectatorship and the power of cinema to represent ‘reality’
(16). As McRoy shrewdly points out, these films both alienate the viewer
and threaten to collapse the distinction between spectator and spectacle and
they do so in an aesthetic manner that takes its cue from a curious mixture
of the pink eiga or soft-core films and the traditional chanbara eiga or
samurai films (24). With its lack of a traditional credit sequence and its
attempt to simultaneously depict the action from both sadistic and
sympathetic perspectives, Devil’s Experiment, in particular, is designed to
blur audience distinctions between fact and fiction, thereby ‘heightening the
visceral impact generated by the “experiment’s” verisimilitude’ (27).
According to McRoy, how this film goes about revealing its contents is as
important as the content of what is revealed.
What is revealed in Devil’s Experiment is undoubtedly misogynistic,
according to McRoy. Its narrative both arises out of, and is a contribution to
the popular tradition of sadomasochistic imagery in Japanese cinema, as well
as being an indication of the nostalgic desire to contain and punish women
in response to male anxieties about changing gender roles in contemporary
Japan. However, according to McRoy, the film is more than simply
misogynistic insofar as it also depicts the dissolution of the boundary

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between inner and outer, between the public and the private, and spectator
and spectacle. In doing so, it replicates the very act of torture and, as such,
must be understood as a complex study of power (30). Interestingly,
however, McRoy fails to entertain other possible interpretations of guinea
pig films, which might counter some of the misogynistic readings. For
example, he overlooks the nationalistic tendency in both Asia and the West
to conflate women’s bodies with the body politic of the state. In this view,
the enemy-as-outsider-invader of the body politic is almost universally
depicted in propaganda not only as a barbarian, but as a rapist and defiler
of womanhood, i.e., motherhood. Here, ‘it is not the woman as sexual object
who is threatened, but as nurturer, the guardian of home, hearth, and
family’ (Keen 1986, 58). Films such as Devil’s Experiment might arguably be
read in this manner as well, particularly in light of other guinea pig films
that offer devastating critiques of contemporary male gender roles, such as
Kuzumi Masayuki’s He Never Dies (Senritsu! Sinanai otoko, 1986), which
depicts an unhappy young salaryman’s gruesome and vain attempts to end
his unfulfilling life of ‘deadening routine and virtual invisibility’ (43).
Part of McRoy’s aim is to provide some insight into the historical basis
for J-horror’s preoccupation with Japanese cultural integrity, social cohesion
and the body politic under siege. But for those unfamiliar with recent
scholarship on critical geography and the primacy of space as a defining
human experience, McRoy’s insistence on the depiction of the body
transformed and torn asunder in J-horror as being emblematic of the
transformations wrought upon the (embodied) Japanese psyche might seem a
bit puzzling at first. Issues of space and place have moved to the fore in
many critical analyses of society and culture in recent years (Herbert 2008,
145). According to Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro, our sense of self is
primarily that of an embodied being that acts within space. We do not first
think about the world, rather we first act within it. As a result, we seem to
be intrinsically inclined toward thinking about complicated, abstract
concepts in terms of maps with our embodied selves at the centre. Hence,
because we are ego-centric beings as well as inherently physical and deeply
social beings, we tend to think of abstract entities such as ‘community,’

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‘God,’ and ‘country’, in terms of their imagined geospatial relationships to

us. This constitutes an ‘atlas of what it means to be human’ (Olsson 2007,
9).
This tendency to view the world in terms of its relation to the
embodied self appears conceptually linked to our tendency to view the
familiar and the comforting in terms of the body and the alien or
unconventional as disease or as ‘outside’ threats to the integrity of the body-
politic. J-horror films play with this notion and, depending on which end of
the political spectrum they stem from, depict the desire for the return to a
homogenous, fully-integrated (mythic) past or imagine a radical departure
from the present with the hope for new future. Themes concerning radical
departure from, or the logical (generally bleak or grisly) extension of, the
status quo form the focus of ‘dove-style’ violence films such as All About
Lily Chou-Chou (Riri Shushu no subete, 2001) and Katsuya’s controversial
All Night Long series, as well as popular apocalyptic films such as Sono
Shion’s Suicide Club (Jisatsu saakuru, 2002), Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Pulse
(Kaïro, 1997) and Higuchinsky’s Uzumaki (Spiral / Vortex, 2000).
In particular, Pulse and Uzumaki play with the notion that
Armageddon while destructive and frightening, may in fact be necessary for
spiritual and social rebirth. However, while personal transformation is often
viewed as positive and necessary for achieving spiritual enlightenment, in
order to achieve such a radical transformation, it is necessary to destroy
one’s current identity and become something very different (Robinson 2008,
25). Such transformation, then, constitutes a kind of metaphorical death,
one which is viewed as either potentially redemptive or irrevocably damning,
or both, depending on one’s inclinations. Such ambivalence about change
renders the horror genre especially effective at articulating our deep-seated
ambivalence towards such transformation and the J-horror genre is no
exception.
My criticisms are relatively minor and hardly detract from the overall
excellence of McRoy’s work. First of all, McRoy’s tendency to level
assertions and then ‘explain’ them by utilising quotes from other scholars
gives short shrift to those who might be unfamiliar with those works. As a

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philosopher, I want more in depth analysis. Assertions should be backed by

clear arguments, which systematically lay out the line of reasoning used by
the work being cited. This is useful not only for an audience unfamiliar with
the works cited, but also allows readers to critically assess the arguments
being proffered. McRoy’s overreliance on quotes from other authors to
buttress his assertions in the absence of greater explication often devolves
into appeals to authority.
In addition, because of the cursory nature of some of McRoy’s
analyses, promising threads of discussion are abruptly cut off. For example,
although McRoy notes recurring motifs in Japanese horror, such as the
staring eye and long black hair, he fails to explicate the origins of these
motifs. Perhaps most glaring is the scant attention paid to the impact of
Shinto on the Japanese worldview, particularly regarding notions of
cleanliness and decay. McRoy relegates Shintoism to the chapter on the
traditional ghost story, but there is much regarding this religion that could
be applied to other chapters as well. For example, recurring motifs of ‘abject
physicality', as in the ‘tasting party of physical flesh’ in Devil Woman
Doctor wherein a ‘catered buffet of dishes featuring assorted body parts’ are
presented for human consumption, are illustrative of a deeper more
widespread, yet taboo fascination with death and decay. Under feudalism, a
rigid class hierarchy dictated that those whose occupations brought them in
contact with death, such as butchers, undertakers, and executioners, were
greatly stigmatised. This was partly due to the fact that Shinto views blood
and death as evil pollutants, as evidenced by the emphasis on ritual
cleanliness to keep any evidence of decay at bay, and partly due to
Buddhism’s proscriptions against killing. Just as McRoy locates the
‘pervasive visual rhetoric’ in J-horror of black out restrictions on the
depiction of genitalia in Japanese soft-core, so too can one trace the
connection between the preoccupation with hiding signs of decay with its
vivid depiction in J-horror films, and the apparent fascination Japanese goth-
horror fans have with wearing bloody bandages and sullied medical
uniforms.

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In addition, the consumption of body parts as depicted in Devil

Woman Doctor,2 also lends itself to contemporary philosophical writings on
disgust. Hence, some reference to the works of Aurel Kolnai, Julia Kristeva,
Carolyn Korsmeyer, Noel Carroll, William Ian Miller, or Winifred
Menninghaus would have been most welcome.3 Also missing is any overt
reference to Japanese psychology, which would have acted as a nice
corollary to the emphasis on Japanese sociology, particularly in light of most
Westerners’ ignorance about such topics. For example, McRoy’s discussion of
the protagonist’s unsuccessful attempts at suicide, including
disembowelment, dismemberment, and self-decapitation in He Never Dies
and the connection of these actions to the body would have benefitted from
some analysis stemming from the cultural tendency to ‘somaticise’ or convert
emotional pain to physical pain. Finally, while mention is made of remakes
in the introduction and chapter on Nakata Hideo’s Ringu (1998) and Dark
Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002) and Shimizu Takashi’s Ju-On:
The Grudge (2002), there is little effort to theorise their implications and one
suspects that McRoy views such films as merely derivative. However, the
phenomenon of the remake and its relation to nihilism and existentialist
themes deserves a bit more attention and, hence, some reference to the work
of Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz would have been welcome.
To be fair, McRoy himself clearly states that the book is meant to be
an introductory text rather than a comprehensive analysis of the J-horror
phenomenon, therefore serving merely as a point of departure for further
discussion. Nonetheless, some readers might wish for a bit more, particularly
about issues and topics that are culturally embedded and whose origins are
unknown to most Westerners. In this manner, Nightmare teases the reader
and makes him or her wish for more.
Regardless, Nightmare Japan has much to offer. It is both timely and
relevant and the fact that it is the only book-length work to deal with this

2
Tabe, Hajime (1990) Devil Woman Doctor (Za ginipiggu 6: Peter no akuma no joi-san).
Japan.
3
See, e.g., Aurel Kolnai’s On Disgust, Kristeva’s Powers of Horror, Korsmeyer’s
“Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting”, Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror, Miller’s
The Anatomy of Disgust, and Menninghaus’s Disgust.

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genre makes it essential reading. McRoy’s observations are important for

understanding how film both interprets and is a product of globalisation. As
McRoy points out, the very notion of a distinct national and cultural
identity is itself the product of modernisation. What such an identity means
in this age of globalisation is an issue with which all societies must grapple.
Indeed, the recent films such as Babel (Constanza Perales, 2005), Crash
(Haggis, Paul 2004), Les Battiments d’Ailes du Papillon (The Beating of a
Butterfly’s Wings aka Happenstance, Laurent Firode, 2000), The Butterfly
Effect (Eric Bress, 2004), Six Degrees of Separation (Fred Schepisis, 1993),
Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2001), 21 Grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu,
2003), Syriana (Stephen Gaghan, 2005), and 13 Conversations About One
Thing (Jill Sprecher, 2002) with their depictions of individual acts having far
reaching ramifications reveal that the West is also struggling to make sense
out of our new sense of interconnectedness.
The salient question is what it means to have a national identity in an
age where the very experience of space has become decentred, due to the
emergence of virtual worlds, a space in which ‘frontiers and boundaries have
become permeable’ (Herbert 2008, 146). In other words, how it is that an
identity concept can retain its uniqueness and decide on its constituent parts
and core characteristics in the face of constant challenges while still allowing
for some flexibility so as to meet the challenges of the postmodern world.
The J-horror film can be viewed as constituting part of a larger socio-
political discourse concerning identity, its representation and as such it is
worthy of our consideration.

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Bibliography

Carroll, Noel (1990) The Philosophy of Horror: or Paradoxes of the Heart.

New York: Routledge.

Herbert, Daniel (2008) “Trading Spaces: Transnational Dislocation in

Insomnia/Insomnia and Ju-On/The Grudge” in Fear, Cultural Anxiety,
and Transformation. Eds. Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz. Lanham,
Maryland (U.S.): Lexington.

Keen, Sam (1986) Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile

Imagination. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Kohn, Hans (1965) Nationalism: Its Meaning and History. Malabar, Florida:
Robert E. Krieger Publishing.

Kolnai, Aurel [1929] (2004) On Disgust. Ed. Barry Smith and Carolyn
Korsmeyer. Chicago: Open Court.

Lukas, Scott A. and John Marmysz (2008). Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and
Transformation: Horror Science Fiction, and Fantasy Films Remade.
Lanham, Maryland (U.S.): Lexington.

McRoy, Jay (2005) Japanese Horror Cinema. Honolulu: University of

Hawaii Press.

Menninghaus, Winifred (2003) Disgust: The Theory of the History of a

Strong Sensation. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Miller, William Ian (1997) Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge,

Massachusetts/London: Harvard University Press.

Olsson, Gunnar (2007) Abysmal: A Critique of Cartographic Reason.

Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.

Robinson, Juneko (2008) “Immanent Attack: An Existential Take on The

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Films” in Fear, Cultural Anxiety, and
Transformation. Eds. Scott A. Lukas and John Marmysz. Lanham:
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Firode, Laurent (2000) Le Battiment d’ailes du Papillon (The Beating of the

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Gaghan, Stephen (2005) Syriana. U.S.A.

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Haggis, Paul (2004) Crash. U.S.A./Germany.

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Sprecher, Jill (2002) 13 Conversations About One Thing. U.S.A.

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