Remakes of J- horror

Hello! Today I will talk about remade works of Japanese horror movie.

 

First of all, I would like to introduce about remakes easily. Japanese horror movie is remade all over the world. So, I will show famous remade movies in Japan or the world.

In Japan, The well-known stories by Kabuki and Rakugo are likely to be remade.  Especially, “Yostuya Kaidan” has the most popular works. It has been remade over twelve times in prewar period and just ten times in the postwar period. Other famous ghost stories have been remade many times, too.

“Bansyu Sara Yashiki”

“Nabeshima Neko”
“Botan Toro”
“Kasane-ga-huchi”

In Hollywood, a lot of movies of various countries have been remade. J-horror movies had been done, too. Most works are remade by director of foreign people, but some works such as “The Ring” and “The Grudge” are done by same director with original movie.

“The Ring” (2002, Director: Gore Verbinski)

“The Ring 2” (2005, Director: Hideo Nakata)
“The Grudge” (2004, Director: Takashi Shimizu)
“The Grudge 2” (2006, Director: Takashi Shimizu)
“Dark Water” (2005, Director: Walter Salles)
“One Missed Call” (2008, Director: Eric Valette)
“The Joyurei” (2009, Director: Fruit Chan)

 

Horror movies have more chances to be remade than other genre’s movies.

In Japan, many famous ghost movies have been remade about ten times: “Yotsuya Kaidan”, “Sara yashiki”, “Kasane-ga-buchi” and “Nabeshima Neko”. In Hollywood, many horror movies of the world over including Japan have been done, too. Why do horror movies have many chances to be remade? It seems that three reasons.

 

1. Small cost

A horror movie can be made at small cost. For example, some famous SF movies of Hollywood cost about a hundred million dollars over: such as “Super-Man”, “Spider-Man”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “King Kong”. But some horror movie cost about several hundred thousand dollars. “Paranormal Activity” (2009) costs about a fifteen thousand dollars, but it gets so big income about two hundred million!


 

2. Stable number of audience
 

 

A remade work has its original works. If it is so popular, it will have many fans. There may be some hard-core fan of it. If one horror movie I love is remade, I will watch it definitely. After all, more poplar horror movie can get more stable audience and movie’s producers can expect rough income. So, producers can make it without losing their nerve.

 

In the case of Hollywood remade works, there would be other reason. This is that it is easy to understand foreign movies for American.

When a movie shows in foreign language other than English, that movie is given subtitles in English.  But most audience don’t like subtitles much in America. So, foreign movies can’t become a big hit. Moreover, it will be hard for them to understand that foreign movie if peculiar customs or morals are put without explanation in that movie. Then, American thinks that try to make foreign movies to the movie like Hollywood by themselves. Because horror movies can be made at fewer small cost than other genre’s movie, remaking is easy to try.

 

Do you come to know about Japanese horror movie? I would like to compare Japanese and Hollywood horror movies next week. See you!