What are some of the horror films that have been compared recently?
I think no matter which movie I talk about, it can't be separated from this one— "The Spell."
This film, which can be said to be a masterpiece of Taiwanese horror films, has written an amazing outstanding performance in the history of Taiwanese provincial film, and it not only broke many records in Taiwan's sluggish film market with a good performance of 38 million yuan at the box office when it was released in theaters.
Even after the launch of Netflix, "Spell" also swept the global film industry with a style, ranking in the top 10 of the top movie list.
The audience is not only frightened by the unique rhythm of the movie, and can never forget the classic incantations and gestures.
The success of "Mantra" represents a major progress in Taiwan's film industry.
Although it is a small cost and low budget, it relies on a complete script and a meticulous attitude to the quality of the story, which gives this work a completely different level.
This is a masterpiece written and directed by director Ke Mengrong, which is presented in the form of a "pseudo-documentary".
Those interactive bridges, visual retention and other techniques create a viewing experience that breaks the fourth wall, which is sincerely admirable.
The film may be terrifying, or it may feel chilling.
But it is a classic that audiences who love to watch horror movies must not miss, and "Spell" is not so much a horror as it is a fear that digs into the bottom of people's hearts.
In "The Spell", you can hardly see any cold plot, but every clue and different lens language is rampant and rippled in the picture that seems to make people feel immersed.
It can almost be said that this ingenious way of interacting is like the director taking the audience to solve the mystery and explore the mystery behind the evil spirits.
So here one can't help but wonder, why is Taiwan more and more successful in making horror films?
I think that to answer this question, we have to start from the representative works of Taiwanese horror films over the years.
Compared with the production of horror films in other regions, the production capacity of Taiwanese horror films is actually very limited.
In the 1970s, Taiwan used classical Chinese novels such as "Liaozhai Zhiyi" and "Taiping Guangji" as the base to shoot horror films with ethics, costumes, karma and other characteristics, such as "Joy and Sorrow" in 1970, "Autumn Lights and Night Rain" in 1974, etc., until director Yao Fengpan created the fashion horror film "Ghost Marriage" in 1976, and continued to launch internationally renowned works, so that horror films jumped out of the framework of adapted literature, and he undoubtedly became the forerunner of Taiwanese horror films.
In fact, in the beginning, although Taiwanese horror films did not flourish, Taiwan's variety shows inadvertently inserted willows.
Variety shows such as "Serial Bubbles" and "Rose Night" have successively launched supernatural units, and have been supported and loved by the public, and the emphasis on "real people and real events", "personal experience", "supernatural images" and other bridges in the program has become one of the important elements of Taiwanese horror films in the future.
In 1998, director Wang Xiaodi launched the animated film "Magic Auntie", which skillfully integrated elements such as yin and yang eyes, ancestral and grandchildren's feelings, urban-rural disparities, and Taiwanese folk beliefs to create a spiritual theme full of funny and touching plots.
Although the film has almost no horror component, the Golden Horse Awards jury advocated that its content was "superstitious", resulting in the film ultimately failing to be selected as the best animated film, which shows that the Taiwan film circle at that time did not encourage the development of related theme films.
But 4 years later, it was not until the birth of Chen Guofu's director "Double Pupil" that this "threshold" was completely broken.
In 2002, director Chen Guofu co-produced the suspense horror film "Double Pupil", due to the production capital of up to NT$200 million, coupled with the crew of Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United States and other regions, the film covers commercial story elements including puzzles, Taoist beliefs, mass murder and other commercial story elements, and also shows the production level of Hollywood, making it a milestone for Taiwanese horror films.
Unfortunately, Taiwan's horror films or film markets cannot fully replicate the scale of the production of "Double Pupil".
However, in 2005, "House Change" and 2006 "Strange Silk" also continued to explore the development direction of Taiwanese horror films with medium-low-cost or mixed-genre production methods, respectively.
After the recovery wave of "Cape Seven" Taiwanese films in 2008, although Taiwan's horrors were occasionally produced, the quality has been poor.
For example, in 2012, "The Story of Changing Sheep", but because of the lack of distinctive characteristics and sophisticated texture, it is still difficult to have a good work.
In 2015, director Cheng Weihao filmed "The Little Girl in Red".
This film is based on the supernatural video tape broadcast on the 1998 supernatural program "The Scourge of the Python", successfully adapted the legend of Taiwan's cities, combining the popular plot with the horror genre, which was warmly echoed by the audience.
In the same year, director Xie Tinghan launched "Corpse Memories", which takes Taiwan's marriage customs as the theme, pays attention to atmosphere creation and physical performance, and also wins a lot of attention and applause.
Since then, movies related to "The Little Girl in Red" have been launched one after another, as if forming a movie universe.
In 2018, the movie "Zong Evil" was based on the concept of changhua coastal "meat dumpling" ceremony, successfully achieved a good box office, and also spent money to develop its film universe in the future, which shows that Taiwanese horror films are gradually becoming better.
In 2020, "Female Ghost Bridge" adapted the legend of the campus of Tunghai University in Taichung, featuring cross-time and space, telling a confusing story axis, and achieving good results on the international audio and video streaming platform.
Two years later, The Spell was born.
The story base of "The Spell" is actually based on a cult, and the cult's strange behavior is indeed a story that happened in Taiwan Province.
In 2005, in the Gushan District of Kaohsiung City, there was a family surnamed Wu, who had long believed in a residential altar, not only because of the instructions of the altar and the possession of the gods, but also the family also pointed to each other as possessed by evil spirits, taking incense to each other, beating each other with the main card of the gods, feeding excrement and other ways to exorcise demons, the eldest daughter finally suffered from scales and starvation, and other family members even guarded the black and rotten body, which shocked all walks of life.
In Ke Mengrong's setting, he uses a large number of Buddhist tantric and Taoist elements.
The incantations, gods, Buddhas, and gestures in the story are all fictional, but with the background of folk beliefs and cultural customs, and even various considerations and expositions in the plot, it is difficult to make people disbelieve when they first watch it, which indirectly proves the strength of the story.
The reason why horror movies make people feel terrible is that the audience is not afraid of ghosts, but the things that the audience will be afraid of are all blamed on ghosts.
The audience is afraid of the dark, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of getting lost, afraid of being scolded, afraid of guilt, afraid of guilt, afraid of violating taboos, afraid of being held accountable, rendering the things that the audience was afraid of to the maximum, and then telling the audience that everything is caused by ghosts.
Or let the audience meet the ghost first, and then let the audience encounter the things that are inherently afraid in daily life.
"The Spell" is also very extreme in this regard.
Another point is that the protagonist group of Taiwanese horror films is very powerful.
In the movie, Cai Qianyan challenged the heroine of the horror film, and for this role, she not only ate lightly for 7 days, but also lost 5 kilograms.
The film's stunning and moving performances won warm applause, as long as she watched horror films, she would have nightmares, in order to understand the psychology of horror film characters, she did enough psychological construction to be able to watch the horror film list designated by director Ke Mengrong.
She once said, "If I hadn't acted myself, I wouldn't have dared to come in and watch The Spell." “
And the actor Gao Yingxuan, who played the kindergarten teacher, said: For the sake of the movie to fight for the performance of Gao Yingxuan, there is a scene where he keeps hitting the desktop, and when he is dubbed in the later stage, he imitates the actions of the time while recording in the studio, and he did not expect to start feeling headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain after the end, and went to physical therapy the next day, only to find that 3 of the 7 cervical vertebrae were not at the correct angle, very dedicated.
Based on the Chinese reverence for religious beliefs, Ke Mengrong found out what the audience was really afraid of.
The horrific elements that everyone sees in "The Spell" are the most feared by the director himself from the bottom of his heart.
For this film, Ke Mengrong spent 5 years from preparation to release, and when he learned that the work had only been on Netflix for a few hours, it caused strong repercussions in many regions.
Ke Mengrong said, "As a director, I never dreamed about it, I always felt that it happened in parallel time and space, thank you for all the love, all of it." ”
After the release of "The Spell" in Taiwan, the word-of-mouth box office was a win-win, but Ke Mengrong was once worried that audiences in other regions would not be able to understand the religious elements or horror layout, and did not expect that after the release of Netflix, they found that the oriental elements that they had never touched had deepened the mystery in the movie.
Although the Netflix re-dubbing part is only in English, Thai and Spanish, it is very surprising that the mantra of "Fire Buddha Shuichi, Heart Sasaki" and the gesture of the Buddha Mother, because there is no language barrier, it has also caused popularity on the Internet like Taiwan, and many fans in other regions have recited the mantra or posed for gestures after watching it, setting off another whirlwind.
Ke Mengrong felt that "The Spell" could achieve the good results of Netflix ranking 1st in Japan, 3rd in Thailand, and 6th in South Korea.
He said that the audiences in other regions who export these horror films must be particularly high for the standards of horror, and they can win the favor of the audience, and there is a particularly affirmed happiness, hoping that audiences in more regions will feel the charm of Taiwanese horror.
For the success of "Spell", Ke Mengrong's confidence has increased greatly, and related stories are officially in preparation, and the so-called "one-word universe" is "Pickle", "Even", "Sleepy" and "Burial", and he will build a horror movie universe belonging to Taiwan based on the most terrifying and real events in Taiwan in recent years.
It is worth mentioning that "Spell" itself will have a sequel of its own, nominated as "Spell 2".
The protagonist will be the very successful child star Huang Xinting, who plays "Duoduo", and is the story of herself who has grown up a little.
It is even more exciting to look forward to the young Huang Xinting, how dazzling the performance will be afterwards.
In fact, to this day, the production of Taiwanese horror films is still not mature, the quality of the film is still unstable, in general, the creativity is limited, the strength has not been caught, but the continuous improvement of technology will help accumulate more and more talents, and it can be expected that Taiwanese horror can continue to tap its own characteristics.
At the same time, combined with other types of film elements, more supernatural themes have been created, and it has become the leader of Chinese horror films in the 21st century.
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