Asian Horror Tales: Kwaidan

Every culture on Earth possesses a unique form of ghost storytelling and mythology that varies depending which country you happen to be in. In the United States you get the typical tale of a monster in the woods or a haunted house, in South America giant river monsters, in the Alps the Abominable Snowman, etc. It should come to no surprise then that Asia has its fair share of unique supernatural tales.

Reading the collection of ghost tales in Kwaidan was a breath of fresh air when it comes to the horror genre. I’ve read way too many generic horror tales that constantly follow the same formula that I’ve slowly become uninterested and bored with ghost stories. Quite sad to admit since I’ve loved reading them since I was a child. I can admit though now that Kwaidan’s given me a new interest in actually reading up on them again. There’s just something so bizarre and really quite fascinating about Japanese ghost stories that I haven’t seen anywhere else. One tale in particular that I really quite liked from the collection was the tale of Mimi-Nashi-Hoichi, or Hoichi the Earless. The story is about a man blind man named Hoichi who is a masterful biwa player capable of bringing about strong emotional reactions to the people who hear him play.

The tale starts at a Buddhist Temple in Akamagaseki during the night where Hoichi is requested by a guard to come play for the lord and his attendants in Akamgaseki. After performing for the lord and moving his audience to tears and many other emotional outcries he is asked to come back and play each night for six days. Later on the monks at the temple discover his outgoings and warn him that he is being led out by the spirits of those killed in the battle of Dan-no-ura who were buried in a cemetery near the temple. The spirits were so moved by his biwa playings that they wanted him to continue laying for them.

The priest of the temple decides to help Hoichi out of his situation by coming up with a plan to keep the ghosts away. He’s covered in protective writings one night and is asked to sit deathly still in the temple as the ghostly guard comes for him yet again. The plan works for the most part and the ghost leaves, but not before taking Hoichi’s ears which were left bare of protective writing and visible to the ghost. This and many of the other tales in Kwaidan follow a unique way of telling a ghost story since they don’t use the obvious plot points or aspects you could find in an uncomfortably large amount of ghost stories now a days.

I’d recommend really getting into Asian ghost tales to be frank. There’s nothing else quite like them and they make for a good horror story in my opinion. Japanese ghost stories are also probably one of the few things you can look for to get away from the cliché horror story tropes of zombies, vampires, werewolves, etc. I know I’m getting a tad tired of them!

Interview With The Vampire

Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to the Vampire genre. The way Rice represents her vampiric characters is unique in that she brings together a new view on the race of blood suckers. These beings aren’t just the typical violent vamps that stalk down humans for their blood and disappear into the night. Instead they’re shown as emotionally turmoiled creatures that deal with very human emotions and thoughts while still maintaining their animalistic tendencies. They’re also shown as being creatures of great beauty and strength (something that Twilight horribly corrupted unfortunately).

            In the Interview With The Vampire we follow the story of the aging vampire Louis who recounts his centuries old tale to an inquisitive interviewer. Throughout the story we learn about how Louis deals with his vampirism and his struggle with his dwindling humanity. I found his character interesting in this aspect as a just turned human always make for a good vampire story. There’s also the infamous vampire Lestat, who in the beginning of the story turns Louis whom he finds will suit him as a good companion. The dynamic of the relationship between Louis and Lestat, I find, is the highlight of this story. As Louis deals with his new immortal life as a vampire, Lestat guides him along as his mentor while also trying to keep him as his comrade. One can’t help but feel bad for the vamp who must’ve been way too lonely for too long since he has to go out of his way to vampify a human to finally ease his loneliness. When Louis plans on leaving Lestat due to his treatment of his human victims Lestat turns a young child into a vampire in order to keep Louis from leaving. It works and we’re then introduced to little Claudia, whom I find to be one of the most intriguing vampire characters ever written. What makes her so intriguing is the fact that she never ages due to her immortality and so she’s stuck looking like a child for the rest of her life. Because she was turned at such a young age Claudia is formidable as a vampire as she hasn’t lived long enough as a human. If she wasn’t killed by the group of vampires who swore revenge for Lestat’s death, which she and Louis had gone through with, I feel she would’ve become a very prominent figure in the Vampire Chronicles. Shame really.

            What I really love about Rice’s vampire novel is the somewhat realistic way in which she shows how her vampires deal with being immortal. Immortality is seen as something great and so many people yearn to gain it, but would it be really worth it to live forever? With Louis we see how over time he loses bits and pieces of his humanity and he becomes something else. Immortality for him was more like a curse as he ended up losing Claudia and anyone else he came to care for. He eventually ends up a lone with no one and stuck with an increasingly long and cursed life. With Lestat immortality seems to have brought him nothing but loneliness. He’s lived for so long, and until he finds Louis he hasn’t had much of a friend or companion to be with. Would immortality really be worth it if you have to live a large portion of your life alone while everyone else around you eventually dies? When it comes to dealing with immortality though, no one has it as worse as Claudia. When she’s turned by Lestat she’s nothing but a small child and has barely experienced the world. She’s cursed to remain in a body that will never mature as her mind becomes that of a woman. There are quite a few moments where Claudia is frustrated by this very fact and eventually begins to detest Lestat for pulling her into such a horrible existence. Being an incredibly old and immortal vampire stuck in the body of a five year old really doesn’t sound too fun now does it?

            

              The overall beauty of Rice’s vampires is not only their physical appearances, but their character and feelings. Despite being vampires, they still feel emotions we humans have as well. The love Louis and Lestat have for Claudia is a prime example. After she’s turned both men take it upon themselves to raise her as their daughter and help her deal with her vampirism. There are moments in the novel where this relationship between the three of them can be incredibly human and I feel that makes them all the more endearing. These aren’t just blood sucking monsters anymore.

Zombies and Monster Island

Look anywhere in today’s contemporary culture and you’ll find at least one reference to the zombie mythos. Seriously. So, excuse the pun, but what I’m trying to point out here is that zombies never seem to “die” and rot away out of our imaginations. From comics to movies, toys and even sports, zombies are everywhere (and we should be grateful that it’s not in the apocalyptic-zombie-end of days type of way). For whatever reason the idea of the dead coming back and attacking and eating the living seems to be an age-old idea that has survived over god knows how many centuries. Back then zombies were something that caused paranoia and fear into anyone who may have been superstitious or paranoid of the possibility of such a macabre being coming into existence. Now it’s a fully adored creative aspect used in media all over the world!

The whole idea of zombies has been rehashed and reused over and over again. This is especially apparent in the entertainment industry. There has to be at least a half dozen movies, shows, or cartoons that are popped out each year that have something to do with zombies. The whole zombie thing really took root in popular culture less than a half century ago but they’ve been a constant in horror films and other forms of media ever since. The Walking Dead, House of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, every darn George Romero film, Dead Snow, Evil Dead, High School of the Dead, etc. There’s been way too many zombie flicks, shows, comics and books to keep count of and they keep on coming. It’s amazing really. The only major changing factor in any zombie media that I’ve come to observe seems to be the origin of the cause of the zombie and how it/they turns into an undead. From toxic waste, alien spores, mad cow, and bioengineered viruses, there seem to be so many fun ways to come up with a zombie infection that it’s easy to see why they’re so terrifying but incredibly fun and inventive to use.

When it comes to the portrayal of zombies 95% of the time it seems to be the same no matter what media they’re seen in. They’re usually rotting and undead or recently turned humans who lack any real conscious and are incredibly violent and attack anyone who happens to be unaffected by whatever turned them. The culprit cause of what has turned the human into a zombie is usually some fast spreading disease or virus that requires physical contact or needs to be ingested or contacted with blood (like being bitten). They have a taste for human flesh and seem to love brains. Why they eat brains I have no idea. Maybe they need to ingest a certain part of the brain to continue functioning or something. I’m still thinking of theories for this, but back to the topic. This is the typical, and I dare say stereotypical, zombie you see almost everywhere. Fortunately there seems to be a creative spur in coming up with new and interesting ways of portraying zombies. Some media portray zombies as people who literally lack a will or soul instead of being a rotten, animated corpse. Others portray zombies as mutants who have lost their humanity and have become blood-thirsty savages who feast on human flesh. I also once had the pleasure of reading a supernatural themed web-comic called Hannah Is Not A Boy’s Name where one of the title characters is a zombie who manages to retain his humanity. Not too many stories show zombies in such a humane manner so I highly recommend reading it.

Another interesting aspect of the zombie is the rate and spread of the infection, virus, or whatever else that had caused it to come into existence. In a lot of media it appears that the typical zombie siege spreads fairly quickly in less than a month and spreads to just about everywhere there’s a human population. Sometimes this can be portrayed ridiculously or it can be done in a disturbingly accurate way. A great example of the “fast spreading” zombie virus can be seen in a lot of George Romero’s undead flicks, especially in Night of the Living Dead. Hordes of the undead seem to come out of nowhere and it’s a wonder that anyone can actually make it out alive. Then there’s David Wellington’s Monster Island. Just recently I had read his undead tale and I found is quite realistic in it’s vision of how the zombie apocalypse would spread. Instead of being a quick process of spreading, the zombie plague actually takes a while to reach out across the human population.

Continuing though with Wellington’s Monster Island, I found that his tale of the undead was a breath of fresh air in the zombie genre. Not only is his portrayal of the undead and his human characters realistic, but he also manages to show the zombie’s side of the story with the introduction of the newly undead Gary and how he copes with his new Homo mortis lifestyle. Giving a zombie a “human” approach instead of making them out as a thoughtless killing machine is rare and it makes the story that much more interesting and endearing by showing how someone would deal with being a zombie. The plot of the story really grabbed me, and my love for all things horror and zombie, so I was able to read through his story with glee. A detail in the story I particularly thought was pretty cool was Wellington’s realistic interpretation of the spread of the zombie virus and how it affected the human population. He explains how most of the well developed nations were ravaged by the zombie plague, but the lower and less developed nations had faired much better. I found this explanation a pretty probable scenario if ever a zombie-like scenario were to occur and it’s just one of those real life scenarios that not too many people talk about in vivid and intelligent detail when it comes to dealing with zombies.