The leitmotif of the 44 Molins de Rei Horror Film Festival will have “J-Horror, beyond fright“ as a motto, with which we will celebrate the Japanese horror heritage, November 7th to 16th, 2025.
Molins de Rei, June 3rd, 2025 — In 2000, Japanese film maker Takashi Shimizu presented Ju-on, opening a prolific and emblematic film saga. This year we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of its premiere and the Molins Horror Film Festival 2025 wants to be part of the celebration devoting this edition to J-Horror Japanese horror—, which issued the guidelines of the new millennium. A genre that combines Japanese folklore along with modern technology (video tapes, telephones and computers) hand in hand. Films that gave priority to the atmosphere and psychological discomfort, with ghosts likeonryō —revenge seeking female undead— which became popular icons. Regardless they often had short budgets, even today, J-horror effectively disturbs with its elaborate aestheticism, slow paced rhythm and an ability of showing the absurdity of modern life through trauma, stories of loneliness, and existential horror.
J-Horror, beyond the fright will be the leitmotif of the 44th edition of the Festival, to be held next November 7th-16th, with the Teatre de la Peni as its main venue.
Let us start the countdown for the kickoff of TerrorMolins 2025 with this text:
"Throuhout the nineties, the complex free and parodistic slashers of Chucky, Scream, I Still Know What You Did Last SummerBut the advent of the new millenium carried the boom of J-Horrora breath of fresh air that brought a new life to the genre with films (and video games) where revenge seeking ghosts were ready to scare our souls. Ju-on and Ju-on 2 produced in 2000, were distributed on video formats straight away, but they were successfully doing the rounds, giving Takashi Shimizu the capital to shoot Ju-on: The Grudge, more a sequel than a re-make.
This terrible story starts out in a house in Tokio, when Takeo Saeki, convinced that his wife is being unfaithful, brutally kills her and their son (along with their cat). In Ju-on we find the classic topic of the haunted house (real protagonist of the film) and a revenge seeking ghost or onryō. Most onryō are women who had been abused by their parents, husbands or lovers, and have the look rooted in the Kabuki theatre: long and messed up dark hair, ultra-pale make-up, wearing white mourning kimonos. According to tradition, when someone dies as a victim of wrath, they undergo a curse that settles down in the places where they used to live and where they eventually died. When you come into one of these places or just contact one of these beings, you will become their victim and will spread them like a virus.
Two years earlier, with Sadako getting out of a TV set in Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998) había puesto el J-Horror en el mapa, con el arquetipo del fantasma del pozo y el simbolismo del agua estancada asociada a la muerte, que también encontraremos en Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002). Cult movie makers like prolific Takashi Miike came along with Chakushin ari (2003), where he recovered the effective clichés of the sub-genre, far from the dense and unclassifiable Ôdishon (Audition) with which he astonished us in 1999 (both films have been present in TerrorMolins). Lately, the J-horror fever seems to mollify, after successful crossovers like Sadako vs. Kayako (2016), with an unrestricted combination of mythologies from Sadako vs. Kayako (2016), with an unrestricted combination of mythologies from Ringu and Ju-on. However, still last year Kôji Shiraishi produced House of Sayuri, including a haunted house, and in 2022, Jirô Nagae premiered Kisaragi Station, featuring a haunted train station. Hold on to your seat because the white faced girl with endless long hair might appear any minute now!!”