For our first three days, we covered some basics of Japanese horror (not classics, though we'll be getting to those shortly). Yesterday and today, though, we've moved to Taiwan for two films - 2006's Silk and the more recent urban legend inspired film The Tag Along. Now, going into these films it should be noted that Taiwanese (and Chinese) horror is not as strongly my forte as Japanese films, for one specific reason - for a long time, China had very little traditional horror film industry. Most of the films we'll be looking at this month will be products of the 21st century (next month, when I join +Frank Fernandez in reviewing action and martial arts films for When Fist Meets Vest, we'll get around to Chinese horror-comedy-martial arts fantasy films, which are really a genre of their own), and I recommend that you look into the genre yourself as it's currently a growing and really unique venue for horror films.
Silk Guest Reviewers: +Frank Fernandez +Mark Parker +Michael Watkins and the Masked Wrestler El Periquito
The Tag Along Guest Reviewers: +Frank Fernandez ; +Mark Parker ; +A. Middleton; +Jesse Anderson and the Masked Wrestler El Periquito
So I was going to write about the influence of modernity and science on Asian horror with these two films, and both are pretty ripe for it - Silk details a world in which the primary research into ghosts and what happens to "human energy" after humans pass on is conducted by scientists looking to exploit a new technology that, among other things, produces reliable anti-gravity, and The Tag Along is linked to a viral internet video as well as, itself, touching briefly on themes of environmentalism and urbanization through its use of Chinese mountain spirits.
That being said, I think both of these movies have a stronger thematic link through the power of love. Love is a powerful force in horror movies - Mrs. Voorhees loved Jason and it drove her to murder and dark magic in Friday the Thirteenth, and the protagonist's mother in Hellraiser assists her wicked uncle in escaping the Cenobites because she believes herself in love with him. Rarely is any emotion presented positively in horror, though, and in exploring Japanese horror in Dead Waves, we saw how love (without empathy, perhaps, but love nonetheless) could twist someone up inside - often the supernatural horrors of those films, or the simply human horrors, turn love into something dark and dangerous.
Not so with these films, which show a stark break away from the often-bleak, sometimes nihilistic views of J-Horror. Though it's hard to say what a common cultural theme for horror might be with such a small sample size, I'd say it's fair to say that both films take a more humanistic view of horror than you would find in other examples we'll be looking at this month (and which we have already looked at). In Silk, we find that the love between mother and son is a powerful bond even after death, and can overcome both hate and fear in addition to separation. In The Tag Along, it's the protagonist's love for her fiance, and his love for his grandmother, that both lures them into the spirit's trap and gives them the chance at freedom.
I don't want to say too much on the specific topics raised because I feel that some parts of the plot are best left unspoiled, but I feel it's worth noting here that these films show one marked difference from the previous entries into this month's reviews - Cursed and Dead Waves both used the concept of infection by the supernatural to ask us questions about culpability, responsibility and empathy. The Tag Along and Silk both strive to answer those questions by telling us that love can overcome guilt and hate and pain, the very things that fuel the darkness that plagues the protagonists of the previous films.
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