You have to see the subtle ways the J horror movies scare you. They deal with what can happen or might happen, what is coming out of the corner that you missed the first time you saw the movie. It has more to do with the mind. Also they use thier cultural differences to tell a cautionary tale. The Japanese culture is intrenched with spirituality and other worldly aspects that the united states doesnt have. We as a nation dont believe you are born evil, we believe it is a creation of our own and we really dont believe in curses or spirits that take hold of something and will not be free to move on. To them (the japanese film makers of this genre) the devil is in the details.

You should look at asian-horror-movies.com They have a huge forum on each movie that they have and its free they just ask for donations if you can afford it. This is the site. (http://asian-horror-movies.com)

Wow thanks! That will definately be more helpful, this forum doesnt seem to be generating much repsonse, but thank you for yours, it was helpful for my research

No problem I am addicted to J Horror and Asian Horror. It is one of the best genre's out there at the moment.

can't believe i didn't see this 'til now. hope you're well.

something to consider (tho it kinda goes against your thesis) is to look at the US GRUDGE remakes as continuations of the original ju-on series (which we can do, since takashi shimizu directed all of them). he actually uses the lead's americanness to his advantage in the first GRUDGE, adding a layer of alienation to the character that intensifies the weirdness creeping up on her.

and my only problem with THE GRUDGE 2 is that the ending of it came too late - for my money it was a really smart way of showing how j-horror had infected the american consciousness, with kayako and toshio finally arriving in chicago and infecting it with their evil. the viral model that's the basis of j-horror gets some nice thematic expression there.

does that make sense? help? gimme a shout if you wanna talk about it further.

good luck!

thb

why don't u try scene in the bathroom....like monster in the bowl of my bathroom, try comedy horror.