こんにちは! Japan’s been producing horror on film since the early 1950’s, but it wasn’t until the late ‘90s/early ‘00s when studios started releasing very successful movies. The early ‘00s brought us what’s considered some of the best of the J-horror genre: Miike’s Audition and Chakushin Ari, and Nakata’s Ringu, to name a few. Since franchise extensions were the style at the time, studios turning their focus across the Pacific was the next step. In 2002, Gore Verbinski helped craft one of the most successful and well-recognized US adaptations in the genre’s history: The Ring. Horror fans tend to agree that this was where J-horror movie adaptations peaked, and it wasn’t until 2004 when The Grudge came out that we saw a sharp decline in adaptation quality.

While the story of Ju-On/The Grudge is scary in its own right, something happened when US studios tried to bring it overseas. Overall, the reviews weren’t favorable, and criticisms ranged from the quality of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s acting to relying almost entirely on jump scares to jolt the audience. While Sadako’s death rattle became one of the most iconic sounds in the horror genre, that seems to be the only thing from The Grudge that stuck around. Meanwhile, Ju-On became a franchise in Japan that delved more into Sadako’s history, and the subsequent sequels and reboot in the US fared no better than The Grudge.

2008’s adaptation of Chakushin Ari, One Missed Call, saw a modern take on Japanese lore, but critics and viewers alike universally panned it. In Japan, however, it too became a franchise. The Grudge 2 & 3, Rings, and most recently, The Grudge (2020) have all failed to take hold in the States, even though they introduce some very interesting concepts into the Japanese franchises. Why, like Fantastic Four movies, couldn’t US studios make another successful adaptation after The Ring? Was it the directors? Writers? Actors? The answer may surprise you.

To understand why most adaptations of J-horror movies don’t do well with US audiences, one has to look at the mythology behind Japanese horror. The most common element is the onryo, a wrathful spirit of a person that wreaks vengeance on the living for wrongs done to them in life; US studios introduced this to their audiences with The Ring. One Missed Call also drew on the same mythology, and The Grudge went further by bringing an onryo’s curse to the US. So why was The Ring successful, whereas the remakes that followed were not? It turns out that there was a lot that was “lost in translation” that resulted in consistent negative reviews.

The Ring paved the way by introducing us to Samara Morgan, a girl who, in life, exhibited supernatural traits that eventually caused her mother to drown her in a well. In death, her vengeful spirit imprinted a curse on a VHS tape that killed anyone brave enough (or stupid enough) to watch it. In Ringu, Sadako Yamamura’s story is extremely similar, with only cultural differences. The concept of nenshin (the imprinting power Sadako/Samara had) worked with the story extremely well, and US J-horror became a smash.

The Grudge, on the other hand, directly involved Japanese culture, mythos, and location, but somehow, it went in a direction the studios weren’t hoping for. The idea of a vengeful spirit born of brutal murder is intriguing enough, but it doesn’t seem to work when American characters are thrown into Japan while doing so. Where The Ring shone (and The Grudge didn’t), was “Americanization”. Rather than directly introducing J-horror mythos to US audiences, it Americanized the story so that it would fit well into US horror tastes and lore. Perhaps if they had introduced the concept of Ju-On/Grudge as being born in the US, it might have gone over better with American audiences. 2020’s The Grudge brought the curse overseas like The Grudge 2, but it didn’t do well, just like The Grudge 2.

In the US, even J-horror itself failed to take hold, and the reasons range from people not wanting to read subtitles to dissonances between the countries’ lore. Nowadays, horror fans look for something outside of US horror and turn to J-horror, and people are interested in not only Japan, but Asian, European, and even South American horror movies. Train to Busan, Don’t Knock Twice, and Ravenous, to name a few, have had a lot of buzz on streaming services, and maybe those services can help inject some lifeblood into US horror fans.

All in all, it might seem like we might never get a good J-horror adaptation in the States, there’s a chance we just haven’t found the right director or writers yet. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us were a godsend for most US horror fans, and with writers like Peele at the helm, we may have some acclaim-worthy horror coming up.

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Written by Topher

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