Therapiebedürftige Geister

Abstract

At the turn of the 20th to 21st century, ghost films experienced an unexpected boom in East and Southeast Asia. This cultivation of ‘angstlust’ needs to be explained, as does the omnipresence of vengeful undead in the cinema. This article deals with the emergence of the East and Southeast Asian horror genre since the late 1990s. Ghost films reflect and comment on the imposition of modernity for individuals and society. The narratives of some transnational ghost films from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore serve as illustrative material. Three interpretative approaches are offered in order to better understand the cinematically generated presence of the undead: ghost films and the dark sides of modernity, ghost films as post-mortem and/or mindgame movies, ghost films and family secrets.