"On the Melancholic Comfort of Late 90's/Early 2000's Horror"

[Sebastian Melmoth]

Some days I feel like the Youtube algorithm knows me better than I know myself.

The site recently hit me with this little ditty--a video essay discussing the supreme COMF of late 90's and early 2000's horror. Silent Hill, Ringu, The Blair Witch Project and others were referenced in the video, harkening back to an era of quieter, analog-based horror. It's a well-done piece, and if you've got 20 minutes to spare I think it's worth a watch.

Anyhow, my interest in this topic far predates the release of this video. The (for me) irresistible draw of late 90's/early 2000's horror (especially J-Horror) is something that's baffled me for a long while. What, exactly, is so comforting about it? Is the thought of dying seven days after watching a cursed tape tempered and sweetened by the thought of a return, however brief, to the sane world of the late 90's?

Films from this era often evoke the grit and grain of the early internet. The marriage of horror and technology is hardly anything new, but the horrors dreamt up in this time period are possessed of the same depth, sinister excitement and uncertainty as the pre-sanitized/corporatized web. Back then, the internet was vast and mysterious. You could dive into it and uncover all sorts of things--good and bad. Now, the internet is essentially a giant widget store. A handful of sites compete for our eyeballs, turning out the same predictable content time and again. The mystery, the romance, is gone.

I think that's why horror films of this era, which so often deal with themes of technology, isolation and the internet appeal to some of us and even inspire comfort. It's a return to those halcyon days when the mystique of the web remained intact.

A few films that fall into this mold for me: Ringu (1998)/ The Ring (2002), Kairo (2001), Noroi: The Curse (2005), The Collingswood Story (2005), Lake Mungo (2008). They're all reasonably spooky--effective horror films, IMO. But they all share a common mood, a common atmosphere. And I love it. Despite the scares, films of this kind bring me a great comfort, and their themes ensnare my imagination. Maybe it's just plain ol' nostalgia. Maybe it's something deeper than that.

I could probably write a lot more about this, and maybe I will if anyone would like to read it, but I'd be curious if anyone else shares this fascination of mine.

<3

 

[Masonna]

I think that I know exactly what you mean. Part of it for me is that horror has always been one of my favorite genres, and at that time I had a lot of time to inundate myself in that whole world and discourse. I loved reading 4chan /x/ in the era where it was slowly becoming more than "where creepypasta threads on /v/ get moved to," I loved watching stupid ghost-hunting videos on Youtube, I loved reading the forums on Monstrous.com where people claimed to be vampires or trapped in other dimensions, I loved reading about Cthulhu cults and Antarctic bloops... It was just really fun.

I'm glad you mentioned Noroi, specifically. Around 2009 or so, people on /x/ would just stream movies all the time, with tons of good morons jabbering in the chat. These were just so goddamned comfy. Anyway, the two movies that seemed to always get shown in these streams were Silent Hill and Noroi. When I imagine scenes from those films, they're still in 240p.

That was also before Paranormal Activity had any distribution, so all that was known about it was from anecdotal, half-mythical reports from film festivals--it and the Grifter were practically indistinguishable. The movie we'd invented in our heads ended up being a lot better than what we got, but that was okay. The shared experience was everything. You don't get that anymore. At least, I don't.

Also! I haven't watched the video you linked to yet, but the Blair Witch stickman in the preview gave me the most intense involuntary memory. There used to be an unusually-active Blair Witch fan forum, where people would discuss all different aspects of the franchise, from the films to the video games to the young adult chapter books. Right when I first joined, the entire forum was wrapped up in what looked like viral marketing for a Blair Witch sequel--lots of strange Youtube videos, webmasters being mailed stickmen, mysterious ARG-esque websites. I'm pretty sure it ended up being absolutely nothing--fan-made absolutely nothing, at that--but it didn't matter. Everybody got together and cared for a little while. That was the best.

 

[Sebastian Melmoth]

LOL. I haven't thought about The Grifter for a long time. Yes, /x/ was something special in those days! I still poke around there now and then, but the board isn't what it once was.


I recently revisited Noroi and was thrilled at how well it holds up. I actually watched it on my laptop, sort of as a throwback to the way I first discovered it back in the day, and I dare say it enhanced the effectiveness of the film.

Everybody got together and cared for a little while.

This. This is a succinct way of describing what I miss about the old web, I think. So many fan forums and hole-in-the-wall message boards... gone like tears in rain... but for a short time, they mattered.

 

[manpaint]

Although technically not 90's horror, I got a similar feeling of melancholy while reading/watching the visual novel/anime Higurashi no naku koro ni which is set in a rural 1980s Japan.

Although some of the horror is technically carried through analog technology, it is not really the point of the plot. Anyway, I think the melancholic comfort come from a longing for simpler times. I think the conrast of quiet place vs intense action has something to do with it.

 

[Emmy Fitz]

I got really into turn of the millennium Japanese horror during lockdown and did a whole YT retrospective on them and their crappy American remakes haha. It's definitely an era that scratches that nostalgic itch more than anything, mostly because I was a chicken in the early-mid 2000s and going back and watching them older has been fun, seeing what was legitimately scary and what hasn't aged well at all. There's few eras in horror I like watching more than those few years from Scream to Saw.

 

[Antoine]

Thing: Japan

More seriously though, I think there's something to this. I don't really feel like looking at a video game right now, but there was a trend in horror. Decline horror. Rather than sharp anxiety or horrific confrontation a lot of works seemed to emerge from human emotional dissatisfaction within what were otherwise rather comfortable times. Very moody stuff. Japanese people cursed by dark feelings while surrounded by clean prosperity and warmly lit material comfort. Americans dissatisfied with being stuck in the boring parts of the country. etc.

Any Session 9 heads here?

 

[Sebastian Melmoth]

^^ Session 9 is excellent. Tremendous film, often overlooked.

And that's a great insight, too. The Horror of the Decline is a good way to put it.

There's a certain restlessness in the concept of: "Everything around me is clean and pleasant. Why do I feel so disappointed, then?" Maybe it was some sort of psychical bitterness; we all unconsciously knew that the clean, tidy world we were living in was soon to be ripped from our grasp. We didn't know when, or how--just that things were degrading before our very eyes and that they would continue to degrade.

 

[alCannium27]

If you talk about J-Horror of the 2000s, it's hard not to then think about -- Suicide Club, Battle Royale and the like. It's hard not to think of that time about Japan that does not conjure the image of a degradated society, of a world without hope, without escape, and the rot festers under every surface.

I've gone into this in another one of my posts about modern Anime elsewhere in this forum, and don't think this will further my expression of that, so I will be short: Japan is a hopeless society hang barely by a thread, and they all know it. These films, shows, mangas, novels, songs, whatever, are all an expression of that feeling of unwellness. Japan is still considered a first world country, yet its unemployment rate is sky-high, its suicide rate is sky-high, about the only thing that's low is interest and birth rate at this point.

The Housing Bubble had crushed Japan, a whole generation raised on promises of a bright future, of unlimited opportunities for the hard-working salaryman turn out to all be lies and one is "lucky" if they are to land a corpo dead-end job. You see reflections of rising youth issues in films and mangas around this time. Hell, even Kikujiro, a drama and lite-comedy about an autistic kid going out from his grandma's house alone in search of his supposedly "working away from home" mother, is largely about the dissolution of the family.

In other words, the supernatural horrors in J-Horror films, are not the ghosts, or Onis, or curses; it's life itself. The hopelessness of the world is all around the people living it, they can't be avoided, they can't be escaped, they can't be placated nor reasoned with. Sooner or later, one has to face the music; you either make peace with it, or be broken by it.

But hey, I'm probaby just gazing on my navel here; I've been focusing on the greats now all this time -- I'm not so sure if Hanako-San of the Toilet really fits my analysis.

 

[Z0diacK]

If you talk about J-Horror of the 2000s, it's hard not to then think about -- Suicide Club, Battle Royale and the like. It's hard not to think of that time about Japan that does not conjure the image of a degradated society, of a world without hope, without escape, and the rot festers under every surface.

I've gone into this in another one of my posts about modern Anime elsewhere in this forum, and don't think this will further my expression of that, so I will be short: Japan is a hopeless society hang barely by a thread, and they all know it. These films, shows, mangas, novels, songs, whatever, are all an expression of that feeling of unwellness. Japan is still considered a first world country, yet its unemployment rate is sky-high, its suicide rate is sky-high, about the only thing that's low is interest and birth rate at this point.

The Housing Bubble had crushed Japan, a whole generation raised on promises of a bright future, of unlimited opportunities for the hard-working salaryman turn out to all be lies and one is "lucky" if they are to land a corpo dead-end job. You see reflections of rising youth issues in films and mangas around this time. Hell, even Kikujiro, a drama and lite-comedy about an autistic kid going out from his grandma's house alone in search of his supposedly "working away from home" mother, is largely about the dissolution of the family.

In other words, the supernatural horrors in J-Horror films, are not the ghosts, or Onis, or curses; it's life itself. The hopelessness of the world is all around the people living it, they can't be avoided, they can't be escaped, they can't be placated nor reasoned with. Sooner or later, one has to face the music; you either make peace with it, or be broken by it.

But hey, I'm probaby just gazing on my navel here; I've been focusing on the greats now all this time -- I'm not so sure if Hanako-San of the Toilet really fits my analysis.

Very interesting insight, I agree with your statements.

 

[turntableToothache]

In your post you referred almost exclusively to J-Horror, but examples of this can also be found in Western Horror of that same period. Films like Cabin Fever, The Blair Witch Project and its not-so-good sequel, Halloween Resurrection, Freddy vs Jason, Scream 3, among others paint a good picture of what the world used to be back in those days. I know that most of these are regarded as pretty terrible films, and it's ridiculous to compare them to classics like Silent Hill or The Ring, but they undeniably share that early 2000s vibe, characters use then-new technology that is considered antiquated by modern standards, there's a presence of the early internet in them. For me, it's nostalgic to rewatch them.