Saturday, August 7, 2010

Hair Featured in Japanese Horror, From Ancient Times to Modern

Today's theme?

Evil hair.

I'd like to talk about exactly why hair is such a staple in Japanese horror movies, stories, games, everything really, and to be honest, it deserves its own entry to shine as the paradigms of great traditional horror that it is.  Let's take a look on why the subject of "hair" is so important in Japanese folklore, culture and horror, as well as some excellent usage of it in modern-day media.

You read that right, I'm going to be talking about really good, actually scary traditional Japanese horror!

Hair is one of the most basic and recognizable elements of traditional Japanese horror. But the reason that a woman's long black hair has become so ingrained into folktales and scary stories that it has become frightening on its own dates back a long, long time, so that we must understand how it came to be before we figure out why.