Eastern Vs. Western Horror

In western horror, the “horrific” element often comes from the suspense of whether a character will live or die. This concept, however, doesn’t seem to exist in the traditional Japanese horror stories recorded in Kwaidan. In Kwaidan, fate and tradition are strongly ingrained in each story. There is little that the human characters can do to change their fates; if they are fated to die, then it’s going to happen regardless of what measures are put in place to stop it. There is very little question of who is going to make it through to the end of each story. In contrast, western horror gives characters more freedom to decide their own fates. The reason for this difference has to do with the nature of the “monsters” in each genre.

The monsters of western horror are often evil without any redeemable qualities, while the monsters of eastern horror are more like forces of neutrality. Early western horror relies on the dichotomy of good and evil to create a scary situation—and the only way the protagonist can escape said situation is to choose to align himself with the “good” side. In contrast, in Kwaidan it is hard to say which characters are good and which characters are bad. There is a much greater ambiguity of good and evil in eastern horror.

While both eastern and western horror ultimately have some sort of moral, the way this moral is arrived at differs greatly between the two sides.