Horror films of Asia
Horror films in Asia have been noted as being inspired by national, cultural or religious folklore, particularly beliefs in ghosts or spirits. In Asian Horror, Andy Richards writes that there is a "widespread and engrained acceptance of supernatural forces" in many Asian cultures, and suggests this is related to animist, pantheist and karmic religious traditions, as in Buddhism and Shintoism. Although Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean horror has arguably received the most international attention, Asian horror films also makes up a considerable proportion of Cambodian
and Malaysian cinema.
Cambodia
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong film industry has long been associated with genre cinema, specifically for action films. The Hong Kong horror films are generally broad and often feature demons, wraiths and reanimated corpses and have been described by authors Gary Bettinson and Daniel Martin as "generically diffuse and resistant to Western definitions." This was due to Hong Kong cinema often creating various hybrid films which mesh traditional horror films with elements of other genres such as A Chinese Ghost Story, which led to Hong Kong critic Chen Yu to suggest that this form was "one more indication of the Hong Kong cinema's inability to establish a proper horror genre."Various interpretations of the Hong Kong horror film have included Bettinson and Martin stating that Hong Kong films frequently prioritize comedy and romance over fear. Author Felicia Chan described Hong Kong cinema as being noted for its extensive use of parody and pastiche and the horror and ghost films of Hong Kong often turn to comedy and generally follow forms of ghost erotica and jiangshi. Early horror-related cinema in Mandarin and Cantonese featured ghost stories that occasionally had rational explanations. The literary source of Hong Kong horror films is Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, a series of short stories with supernatural themes written in the 17th century. Unlike Western stories, Pu focuses on the value of the human form which is essential for reincarnation, leading to stories about ghosts such as Fox spirit trying to seal a mortal man's life essence, usually through sex. This led to a relatively large degree of Hong Kong horror films, even more than their Korean and Japanese counterparts, featuring chimeric creatures exhibiting bodily features of various animals. According to author Stephen Teo, corporeal 'trans-substantiation', such as in the form of a human to werewolf or vampire to bat, is "unthinkable in Chinese culture since the rule of pragmatism requires that one's physical, human shape be kept intact for reincarnation and for the wheel of life to keep revolving"
Early Hong Kong horror films of the 1950s were often described by terms such as shenguai, qi guai and shen hua. Most of these films involved a man meeting a neoi gwei, followed by a flashback illustrating how the woman had died and usually concluded with a happy ending involving reincarnation and romance. Examples include the ghost story Beauty Raised from the Dead and The Nightly Cry of the Ghost which suggests the supernatural but concludes with a rational explanation for the proceedings. Other trends included humorous variations such as The Dunce Bumps into a Ghost as well as films about snake demons that were imitating films from the Philippines and made co-productions with the country with Sanda Wong and The Serpent's Girls' Worldy Fancies.
Other Early works include The Enchanting Shadow based on Pu's work, which did not create a cycle of ghost films. In the 1970s films such as the Shaw Brothers and Hammer Film Productions co-production Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires would not take off worldwide and not produce cycles of similar horror films. King Hu's films such as Touch of Zen would touch upon Pu's work, including plot points of fox spirits, while his other work such as Legend of the Mountain would be full on ghost stories.
Veteran stuntman, actor and director Sammo Hung decided to blend horror with more humour, leading to Encounters of the Spooky Kind. The film was popular at the box office leading to several kung-fu-oriented ghost comedies. Directors ranging from Ann Hui to Tsui Hark would all dabble with the genre, with Sammo Hung producing Mr. Vampire and Tsui Hark producing A Chinese Ghost Story, which would be stories from Pu Songling's work.
According to Gary Bettinson and Daniel Martin, the critical attitude towards Hong Kong horror was that it reached its commercial and artistic peaks in the 1980s, partially in response to the audience's decline in the dominance of kung fu films. The rise of Asian horror films in the 2000s has been described by Laikwan Pang in Screen as setting Hong Kong horror films back, stating that "once famous for churning out hundreds of formulaic horror films have almost completely died out - precisely because of the industry's fraught efforts to adapt to a Chinese market and its policy environment." In 2003, author Daniel O'Brien stated that the Hong Kong film industry still turned out horror films. Still, the number of them turned out much lower, with the genre rarely attracting major filmmakers and operating on the low-budget side of the industry with films like the Troublesome Night series, which had 18 entries. In 2018, Bettinson and Martin found that the Hong Kong horror film had become nostalgic and contemporary, noting films like Rigor Mortis as referencing the older Mr. Vampire film while also as adapting to the shifting global market for Asian cinema.
Exploitation and Category III
In the 1970s a shift in style and type of Hong Kong horror films began being produced with more explicit depictions of sex. Actor Kam Kwok-leung who appeared in some of these films such as the Shaw Brothers produced The Killer Snakes stated that the studio's "attitude was rather shameless; they threw in nude scenes or sex scenes regardless of the genre As long as they could insert these scenes, they didn't mind throwing logic out the window. The Killer Snakes was no exception" The film was directed by Kuei Chih-Hung, it was his first horror film and led to him being one of the few Hong Kong directors to specialize in horror. These films were sometimes described as exploitation, characterized by their gratuitous or excessive nudity, extreme violence, and gore are generally regarded by critics as "bad" rather than quality or serious cinema. Keui would return to horror in various films after such as Ghost Eyes, Hex, Hex vs Witcraft, Hex After Hex ''Curse of Evil and The Boxer's Omen. These films were swept aside by the late 1980s when an even more raw form of exploitation cinema arose with the Category III film creation in 1988. Category III films from the era such as Dr. Lamb and The Untold Story were linked to horror from their excessive violence and blood-letting of their serial killer central characters.Other horror films borrowing from Western trends were made such as Dennis Yu's two films The Beasts resembling Last House on the Left and The Imp, Patrick Tam's Love Massacre resembling the American slasher film trend. Later cases of the genre often exclude the ghost story style, such as The Untold Story and Dream Home'' which have lead characters within scientific explanation.
India
The Cinema of India produces the largest amount of films in the world, ranging from Bollywood to other regions such as West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Unlike Hollywood and most Western cinematic traditions, horror films produced in India incorporate romance, song-and-dance, and other elements in the "masala" format, where as many genres as possible are bundled into a single film. Odell and Le Blanc described the Indian horror film as "a popular, but minor part of the country's film output" and that "has not found a true niche in mainstream Indian cinema." These films are made outside of Mumbai, and are generally seen as disreputable to their more respectable popular cinema. As of 2007, the Central Board of Film Certification, India's censorship board has stated films "pointless or unavoidable scenes of violence, cruelty and horror, scenes of violence intended to provide entertainment and such scene that may have the effect of desensitising or dehumanizing people are not shown."The earliest Indian horror films were films about ghosts and reincarnation or rebirth such as Mahal. These early films tended to be spiritual pieces or tragic dramas opposed to having visceral content. While prestige films from Hollywood productions had been shown in Indian theatres, the late 1960s had seen a parallel market for minor American and European co-productions to films like the James Bond film series and the films of Mario Bava. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Ramsay Brothers created a career in the lower reaches of the Bombay film industry making low-budget horror films, primarily influenced by Hammer's horror film productions, with little known about their production or distribution history. The Ramsay Brothers were a family of seven brothers who made horror films that were featured monsters and evil spirits that mix in song and dance sections as well as comic interludes. Most of their films played at smaller cinema in India, with Tulsi Ramsay, one of the brothers, later stating "Places where even the trains don't stop, that's where our business was." Their horror films are generally dominated by low-budget productions, such as those by the Ramsay Brothers. Their most successful film was Purana Mandir, which was the second highest-grossing film in India that year. The influence of American productions would have an effect on later Indian productions such as The Exorcist which would lead to films involving demonic possession such as Gehrayee. India has also made films featuring zombies and vampires that drew from American horror films opposed to indigenous myths and stories. Other directors, such as Mohan Bhakri made low budget highly exploitive films such as Cheekh and his biggest hit, the monster movie Khooni Mahal.
Horror films are not self-evident categories in Tamil and Telugu films and it was only until the late 1980s that straight horror cinema was regularly produced with films like Uruvam, Sivi, and Eeram were released. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a flurry of commercially successful Telugu horror films like A Film by Aravind, Mantra, and Arundhati were released. Ram Gopal Varma made films that generally defied the conventions of popular Indian cinema, making horror films like Raat and Bhoot, with the latter film not containing and comic scenes or musical numbers. In 2018, the horror film Tumbbad premiered in the critics' week section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival—the first ever Indian film to open the festival.