Allow me to begin by stating the obvious, just about all horror films are at least on some level going to be unrealistic. At some point, a 7 foot zombie with a chainsaw is not in your daily routine. You will not have to worry many days in your life about the woman in chains who rattles down your corridor every Sunday, because her husband murdered her in her sleep and chained her corpse to the bed so that he had a sexual companion for the next few weeks. This article is not about the realism of horror films in the sense that reality is being replicated in the form of a documentary, or that the images and concepts of horror movies are literally real. Rather, this is an introspection into a certain clear and distinct difference in some of the recent horror films I’ve been watching. Diverse though my horror taste is, I have found myself having a sincere hunger for Japanese horror of late. I’m talking about a full range, from Ichi the Killer and Hellevator to Tokyo Gore Police, Meatball Machine and Zombie Girl vs Frankenstein Girl. It’s become a borderline obsession for me inasmuch as I find the Japanese to be good practice for my new job, and the images are exciting and bold and certainly creative. The knock-on effect of this, however, has been to set the far more moderate western horror in a new and rather odd light. Great though the films may be, I have found now that they are that little bit more dull, more moderate, more realistic in their temprament, a fact that is as tragic as it is inevitable.

At first glance, it is obvious in some ways where this distinction lies. If you look at a lot of recent horror from Hollywood and the west more generally, the emphasis in several areas has tended towards ultra-realism. Things like the Saw series and Hostel typify this movement. The focus is on a certain element of gore and effects, but done to try and resemble the ultimate in realism. It should be what actually happens when someone gets their leg chopped off by a psychopath, or when someone does trip and fall into a meat-grinder. Gritty, but ultimatley somewhat realistic. The image on the left typifies this. There is, even in its most horrible incarnation, a certain reality that is expected. The viewer should see themselves as not being a million miles removed from this ever even being in the realm of the possible, nevermind actually happening. These films are probably on the slight decline now in terms of their ultimate popularity, but the trend remains. Gore and violence is done to realistic effect. Try to make people squeamish and uncomfortable.

Now by contrast, a lot of the stuff I’ve been watching of late is the complete antithesis of this, and it just brightens up the mood so much more. Take any good shot of the Japanese horror world these days and you’ll find things that tend more to defy belief, rather than mimick it. A hand gets chopped off in the West, it reacts accordingly. Fair bit of blood, lot of screaming. Hand gets cut off in Japan, it gushes an absolute geyser and it causes it to rain blood from the heavens.  I mean what could be more glorious than seeing someone lose both their arms and having that effect literally dominate the screen as blood gushes in every direction possible. The end result of these kinds of images should be the ultimate visceral experience. It isn’t about realism, it’s about the over-the-top theatricality of blood and guts, the ultimate schlock-fest of excess. And for these films it works. When you can have a film where a person disassembles themself and reassmbles themself with other parts to make a giant foot-for-a-helicopter-on-her-head super-freak, you’ve reached the pinnacle of cinematic experience, and you’ve done so by departing from reality as much as humanly possible. The end result of this excess is that the room is painted red. Utterly utterly red. If it were an imge-class, you’d call it Kubrickian. The difference between the two of course is that here, the red is not a light, it’s bodily fluids, soaked into every corner of the shot. It permeates some of the horror I’ve been prone to watching of late like nothing I’ve seen before, and I absolutely love it. Reality has long since departed, and I’m left with a bizarre circus-like freakshow of death and devastation. It is certainly a big leap from the grit and guts of The Devil’s Rejects or Saw, both of which I thoroughly enjoy, but neither of which desires to be as out there as the Japanese side. The ultimate tragedy in this is not that Japan does it so well, it’s that hollywood rarely even tries to head in this gore-fest of a direction. It seems ultimately to want to have a grounding in reality.

This is made most clear when even supernatural horror films about zombies and ghosts still try to aim for reality. Loosen up, let the blood and guts fly a little. Spray away some of the dull mundane reality, and start to enjoy horror for what it can be, the ultimate in nightmarish expressions and freaking occurances. For me, I think that there is a place for both, but it saddens me that I can only get realism from the West. At least in modern times. Long gone are the Peter Jackson style bloodbaths of Brain Dead. We need to bring that back. As horror fans, we deserve a bit of excess.