Ghost in the Well

The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan

Dr Michael Crandol (Leiden University, the Netherlands)

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Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
12 August 2021

Film theory & criticism; Film & movie: styles & genres

"Ghost in the Well is the first study to provide a full history of the horror genre in Japanese cinema, from the silent era to Classical period movies such as Nakagawa Nobuo’s Tokaido Yotsuya kaidan (1959) to the contemporary global popularity of J-horror pictures like the Ring and Ju-on franchises.

Michael Crandol draws on a wide range of Japanese language sources, including magazines, posters and interviews with directors such as Kurosawa Kiyoshi, to consider the development of kaiki eiga, the Japanese phrase meaning ""weird"" or ""bizarre"" films that most closely corresponds to Western understandings of ""horror"". He traces the origins of kaika eiga in Japanese kabuki theatre and traditions of the monstrous feminine, showing how these traditional forms were combined with the style and conventions of Hollywood horror to produce an aesthetic that was both transnational and peculiarly Japanese.

Ghost in the Well sheds new light on one of Japanese cinema's best-known genres, while also serving as a fascinating case study of how popular film genres are re-imagined across cultural divides."

By: Dr Michael Crandol (Leiden University the Netherlands)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 606g
ISBN: 9781350178748
ISBN 10: 1350178748
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 12 August 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Michael Crandol is an assistant professor of Japanese studies at Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is the author of several articles on the history of Japanese horror film, including a chapter in The Japanese Cinema Book (British Film Institute, 2020).

Reviews for Ghost in the Well: The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan

Moving beyond the usual suspects of internationally acclaimed turn-of-the-millennium J-horror flicks, Michael Crandol's groundbreaking study of the transnational history of the horror film in Japan plunges us into the very bowels of the kitschy, wonderfully creepy, sometimes terrifying, always thrilling realm of the perennially popular Japanese cinema of the strange. -- Adam L. Kern, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA A welcome challenge to the prevailing notion that genres such as supernatural horror should only be understood in Western terms. -- Jasper Sharp, Independent scholar, UK