The decay of the horror genre

Sarina Javanmardi, Staff Writer

Everyone is a fan of a good horror movie, but creativity in the horror genre has unfortunately declined. Followed by multiple sequels, horror movies have lost the thrill and rush that used to accompany them. Of Course, with the exception of Junji Ito.

Junji Ito, a Japanese comic artist has altered the horror genre. These days, horror films rely heavily on jump scares and overused cliches. We constantly see the same things over and over again with worn out monsters like zombies, ghosts, demons and other supernatural beings. Junji Ito, however, has completely avoided those ideals for horror, creating new things for people to fear through everyday things we never felt were a threat before.

Like Uzumaki, one of his most popular comics so far. Inspired by the positive connotation spirals had in Japanese media, Junji Ito decided to completely change that idea. In his comic there are no cliches, no supernatural beings, or overuse of jump scares. It is a story about a small haunted town, not by ghosts, but spirals. You heard it right, spirals. It starts small, slowly turning into something much bigger. Everything turns into a spiral, even the protagonists hair. Attempting to cut it off would just cause the hair to strangle the protagonist. It only gets worse from there, the spirals began destroying buildings and cities, completely taking over the town. The whole idea of it was based on H.P. Lovecraft’s style of storytelling. The idea of forbidden knowledge, finding something about the universe so big, the human brain cannot fathom. Thus, destroying the human psyche. Junji Ito frequently plays on the theme of destructive knowledge.

Not only are his stories original and complex, but also the visuals are terrifyingly stunning. Junji Ito has the ability to make a simple house cat look eerie and otherworldly. Since he originally planned on becoming a dentist, his medical background gives all his illustrations of bodies and organs an extremely detailed, gruesome look.

Junji Ito’s creativity and stunning artwork raises the bar for the horror genre, and hopefully one day the rest of the horror comic artists and filmmakers can catch up to him, freeing us from the never ending line of sequels.