darky89
08-28-2008, 10:35
I stumbled across this gamespot blog and thought it was quite interesting, so i decided to share....
Originally by OracleXIII
I still remember the first time I played through FEAR. Early on in the game you're making your way through some corridors, the light is flickering, something is not right. All of a sudden everything explodes and bursts up in flames, time slows down and from the fire a little girl is walking towards you. You know you're going to die. So you start firing at her, round after round after round. But nothing happens. She gets too close so you run, you run into the fire. And everything goes white...
Don't you love these little masterpiece scenes in video games and movies? I sure do. But what is this obsession, it would seem, with the scary little girls in movies and games? We see them everywhere these days. I don't think gamers can imagine a good horror game without at least one encounter with these little ghastly girls. So what are they, really? I know every game has its own explanation and every movie gives you a little bit more info. But, it's never the whole story. So for those of you who are interested, here is a little bit of history and information on where they come from and what do they want from us.
The scary little girl concept has its roots in the Japanese belief in yuurei (幽 霊 ). Basically they are the equivalent of regular ghosts known in the Western world. The word itself means "faint spirit". They are ghosts of people who have "unfinished business" in the world of the living, which renders them incapable of entering the underworld. In other worlds, yuurei are here because of strong emotions, like hate, or the lust for vengeance, and until they do what they have to do, they can't move forward to the afterlife. (Or in some cases they are just simply evil). These ghost are an integral part of Japanese folklore and the belief existed for centuries before somebody got the idea to make movies or games about them. They made numerous appearances in Japanese literature long before the first movie in which the concept was utilized. I believe the first time a yuurei made it to the theaters was in 1965, when a Japanese movie Kaidan (怪談 ) was released (the title means "ghost stories"). From that point forward the concept of yuurei became popular in Japanese entertainment, they appeared in mangas, animes, and more and more movies. Come to think about it, I cannot recall any Japanese horror movie which didn't have yuurei in it. Some people may argue that Kaidan wasn't the first yuurei movie, but I think it would be a mistake to say so, because that image pretty much established how the Japanese ghost should present itself in fiction.
The Western world had its first encounter with the Japanese ghost on a major scale in 2002, when "The Ring", an American remake of a Japanese movie, hit theaters worldwide. Soon after that almost every Asian horror flick got attention from the American movie industry and got a high-budget remake. We've seen two American "Rings", another two "Grudges", one "Shutter", and many more movies focused more or less on the subject. The reason why I think yuurei became so popular in American cinema is that they revolutionized the horror genre. They were a breeze of fresh air. I mean, how many zombie movies, or psycho serial killers can you withstand? It gets boring. Now, instead of the gore and violence of a typical American horror flick, the audience got horror with a whole new formula. The "fear" was built not on graphic violence and gore, but on increasing suspense and the blink-of-an-eye appearances by the ghosts. It was entertaining.
Now we finally get to video games. Most of the games were Japanese, like Sairen or Silent Hill, but, the before mentioned FEAR is a great example of how an American game can make the magic happen as well as the Japanese. But at some point I think the idea got worn out a bit, because now we see these little girls almost everywhere. They may not be yuurei, but that doesn't matter, because they look similar and are, to some extent scary. There are little girls in BioShock, in Condemned 2 (exploding baby dolls? c'mon...), in Silent Hill: The Room, and so on. There even was a yuurei moment in VtM: Bloodlines. And even if there's no ghosts involved, the creators of games use the same formula to build suspense. I think it's about time they came up with something new to scare us, zombies and ghosts just don't do it anymore. When you see the same thing for the 10th time it's just not scary anymore. That's why I'm looking forward to games like Dead Space. The On The Spot demo looked quite impressive, and it seems like it's gonna be a new kind of thrill.
http://uk.gamespot.com/users/OracleXIII/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25513277&tag=soapbox;subject;2
Originally by OracleXIII
I still remember the first time I played through FEAR. Early on in the game you're making your way through some corridors, the light is flickering, something is not right. All of a sudden everything explodes and bursts up in flames, time slows down and from the fire a little girl is walking towards you. You know you're going to die. So you start firing at her, round after round after round. But nothing happens. She gets too close so you run, you run into the fire. And everything goes white...
Don't you love these little masterpiece scenes in video games and movies? I sure do. But what is this obsession, it would seem, with the scary little girls in movies and games? We see them everywhere these days. I don't think gamers can imagine a good horror game without at least one encounter with these little ghastly girls. So what are they, really? I know every game has its own explanation and every movie gives you a little bit more info. But, it's never the whole story. So for those of you who are interested, here is a little bit of history and information on where they come from and what do they want from us.
The scary little girl concept has its roots in the Japanese belief in yuurei (幽 霊 ). Basically they are the equivalent of regular ghosts known in the Western world. The word itself means "faint spirit". They are ghosts of people who have "unfinished business" in the world of the living, which renders them incapable of entering the underworld. In other worlds, yuurei are here because of strong emotions, like hate, or the lust for vengeance, and until they do what they have to do, they can't move forward to the afterlife. (Or in some cases they are just simply evil). These ghost are an integral part of Japanese folklore and the belief existed for centuries before somebody got the idea to make movies or games about them. They made numerous appearances in Japanese literature long before the first movie in which the concept was utilized. I believe the first time a yuurei made it to the theaters was in 1965, when a Japanese movie Kaidan (怪談 ) was released (the title means "ghost stories"). From that point forward the concept of yuurei became popular in Japanese entertainment, they appeared in mangas, animes, and more and more movies. Come to think about it, I cannot recall any Japanese horror movie which didn't have yuurei in it. Some people may argue that Kaidan wasn't the first yuurei movie, but I think it would be a mistake to say so, because that image pretty much established how the Japanese ghost should present itself in fiction.
The Western world had its first encounter with the Japanese ghost on a major scale in 2002, when "The Ring", an American remake of a Japanese movie, hit theaters worldwide. Soon after that almost every Asian horror flick got attention from the American movie industry and got a high-budget remake. We've seen two American "Rings", another two "Grudges", one "Shutter", and many more movies focused more or less on the subject. The reason why I think yuurei became so popular in American cinema is that they revolutionized the horror genre. They were a breeze of fresh air. I mean, how many zombie movies, or psycho serial killers can you withstand? It gets boring. Now, instead of the gore and violence of a typical American horror flick, the audience got horror with a whole new formula. The "fear" was built not on graphic violence and gore, but on increasing suspense and the blink-of-an-eye appearances by the ghosts. It was entertaining.
Now we finally get to video games. Most of the games were Japanese, like Sairen or Silent Hill, but, the before mentioned FEAR is a great example of how an American game can make the magic happen as well as the Japanese. But at some point I think the idea got worn out a bit, because now we see these little girls almost everywhere. They may not be yuurei, but that doesn't matter, because they look similar and are, to some extent scary. There are little girls in BioShock, in Condemned 2 (exploding baby dolls? c'mon...), in Silent Hill: The Room, and so on. There even was a yuurei moment in VtM: Bloodlines. And even if there's no ghosts involved, the creators of games use the same formula to build suspense. I think it's about time they came up with something new to scare us, zombies and ghosts just don't do it anymore. When you see the same thing for the 10th time it's just not scary anymore. That's why I'm looking forward to games like Dead Space. The On The Spot demo looked quite impressive, and it seems like it's gonna be a new kind of thrill.
http://uk.gamespot.com/users/OracleXIII/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25513277&tag=soapbox;subject;2