Course Description: Since the mid-1990s, Japanese horror films have been enormously popular. Films like The Ring and Ju-on: The Grudge were extremely successful in Japan and gained worldwide followings since their original releases. The majority of prolific J-horror filmmakers have been active participants in Japan's contemporary cinephile community: they regularly write for Japanese cinephile journals and have published books about international film history and theory (which are not necessarily exclusively, or even primarily, about horror). This class will address the historical context of cinephilia in Japan from which these filmmakers emerged. We will also analyze the contemporary J-horror canon in light of the filmmakers' own writings on film. We will also watch films that these filmmakers have written about alongside their own writings about them. In so doing, we will be tracing the lineage of cinephilia in Japan as an intellectual discourse, looking at the relationship between film theory and film production in contemporary Japan, and looking at the J-horror canon from the perspective of the filmmakers themselves.

Course Objectives: Students will learn how to analyze films in terms of their formal construction and the ways that they can structure the responses that they elicit from spectators (i.e., how horror films can scare people). They will also learn about the history of cinephile culture in Japan and its connection to contemporary Japanese film production.

Readings: All readings will be available on the course sakai site. Students who are proficient in Japanese will have the option to read some of the readings in their original Japanese. However, English translations will be available for all required readings.

Complete syllabus available upon request.