Why do the only good ghost movies/stories come out of Asia?

M

mrbrycel

Well-known member
Has anyone else noticed this? The only good ghost movies be ever seen come out of Japan. Thailand and Cambodia also have great stories, but their actors, audio, and cinematography aren't.

Not only does Hollywood make terrible ghost movies, but they can't even remake a good Japanese movie well.

My guess is that America is a mainly Christian country based on the "ghosts don't exist" belief, where as Asia, mainly Buddhist, has the belief of a ghost realm. I feel like Asia bases their screenplays off of real experiences, where America uses their imagination resulting in completely overdoing ghosts.

In ghost movies I always find subtlety to be the scariest. But Hollywood always has to create overdone creaturelike ghosts and go CGI-crazy.
 
Or Spain or Mexico:
The Orphanage IMDB
Spain / Mexico
Maybe my favorite movie - top three or so for sure.

Devil's Backbone IMDB
Spain / Mexico

The Others IMDB
Spain / USA

The Shining and Sixth Sense handled ghosts pretty well too, but granted, those are exceptions.
 
"Not only does Hollywood make terrible ghost movies"


NO, they make what America wants to watch! America sad to say watches only stuff they can follow and understand. Basically simple movies that won't lose their attention.

Kind of like the dumb reality shows you see all over TV, hey it's what sells. MTV isn't music television anymore, it's a drama fest.


Yea I'm with you, but don't ask us ask America. :)
 
I think he meant this century. Well then again The Decent was awesome !

newdescentpost.jpg
 
What ?

What you are seeing is a trend. Saying Hollywood does "this or that" as a negative is absurd when Hollywood has given us the standard for 100 years.

There aren't many ghost films as it is and is anyone really into Asian cinema (The ghost or horror films) other than the cultish following outside those countries ? I personally have not been so jacked on Asian cinema. I like some, but don't find any of it extraordinary.

American ghost films ?

The Amityville Horror
Poltergeist
Beetlejuice
Ghost Story
The Changeling
Ghost
The Exorcist
The Other's (Spanish)
Ghostbusters
The Entity
The Haunting (1963)
The Shining
The Sixth Sense
What Lies Beneath

Yeaaaah, not good, right ?
 
I think its a bit based on what culturaly stands for "Horror" in America vs Asia or the "Latin" World. Latinos and Asian's have some things in common- they are both very superstitious and religious. If you see horror movies from both Asia and Latin countries, they focus on ghosts, on curses and very often mix religion and religious myths on their films. American movies tend to base themselves on Monsters, Human, Alien or other, as well as on Gore. The best horror movies are those that mess with your mind.
 
ghost an spirits are very much apart of other culture mostly in asian culture so it easier for them to tell those tales.
 
it is british. but the faux made it in northcarolina.... it wasn't film in NC trust me. it was made a nd released there first.
 
spidey said:
it is british. but the faux made it in northcarolina.... it wasn't film in NC trust me. it was made a nd released there first.
Click to expand...

Do you mean "faux" NC because it has the Screen Gems label on it?

The studio here in Wilmington (formerly DeLaurentiis, formerly Carolco) is EUE/Screen Gems, which isn't the same Screen Gems. The Screen Gems which produced The Descent is owned by Sony.
 
well it hard to say. they say it... because it british director. there the british version which is better has a better ending. the license plates in the movie say North Carolina. It's possible it was made here but not likely if anywhere it said it was nc but really it was canada and I'm right IMDB says this
:
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Perth and Kinross, Scotland, UK

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Scotland, UK

Tring, Hertfordshire, England, UK

UK

so it made in the UK. Case closed.
 
The original The Haunting was great, but as a whole the American culture really doesn't want to believe in ghosts. On the other side of the coin, Asians embraced ghosts, spirits, and their ancestors, actually bringing them into their religion and beliefs much like the American Indians did.
 
Filming
While The Descent was set in North America, the film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios near London.

The cave was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. Set pieces were reused with care, and filmmakers sought to limit lighting to the sources that the characters bring with them into the cave, such as the helmet lights.[2]

Marshall cited the 1970s films The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Exorcist, and Deliverance as influences in establishing tension in The Descent. The director elaborated, "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse."[2]

Production of The Descent was in competition with an American film of a similar premise, The Cave. The Descent was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but The Cave began filming six months before its competitor. Filmmakers of The Descent decided to release the film before The Cave, so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005.[2]
 
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