Snuffed Films: The Death of Chinese Horror and the Best Chinese Language Horror Films

Tis the season to snuggle up with a loved one and watch everything from cheerleaders being massacred by masked baddies on prom night to poltergeists abducting little girls through television sets. It’s hard to believe (maybe not so hard) that in a country filled with day-to-day examples and evidence of spirituality – fortune tellers, ghost money, temples, and qi-harnessing feng shui – that cheap thrills like horror movies are technically banned.

For example, no "real" ghosts are permitted in films because they represent superstition and or sometimes/somehow cult activity in a realistic way. The only allowable ghosts in cinema or television must be in the form of dreams or the imagination. Using haunted minds instead of haunted houses was a loophole used in The House That Never Dies, released last year, where the protagonist is apparently dosed with (the equally as illicit) LSD to induce various sorts of paranormal brain activity and ghostly apparitions.

The dilemma surrounding horror movies and their lackluster reception seems to rear its ugly head at least once a year, the most recently being the lukewarm American box office results (13.1 million USD opening) of Crimson Peak. Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, considered by many as the man at the helm of the horror genre and known for classics like Cronos and Pan’s Labyrinth, Crimson Peak should have performed well and was critically acclaimed, but has yet to recoup its production costs (73 million USD).

Many big budget motion pictures rely on China to recoup these expenses, and a deficit as large as USD 60 million is enough to make any motion picture executive shake in their boots like a zombie. Is it time for these archaic regulations to be re-examined, or should we wait for harmless films like the highly anticipated Ghostbusters reboot to hit the shelves at DVD shops – an unprofitable outcome for both the Chinese film industry and Hollywood.

To help with the ongoing dearth of horror flicks, below I've compiled some thrilling selections to get your ghoulish jollies off that are either produced in Hong Kong or slipped through the censor's cracks.

Dream Home (2010) 
While more of a psychological horror movie, this gory classic is set in Hong Kong and apparently based on a true story and follows a young lady who has been saving money for years to buy her dream apartment, but after the deal falls through, she is forced to murder (lots) to finally make her dream a reality. Be warned, two audience members vomited, and one fainted during the premiere at the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy.

Song at Midnight (1937) 
A Chinese remake of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, and the first ever horror movie to come from China, this classic film is filled with relentlessly gloomy cinematography and classically deranged set designs. It borrowed a lot of elements from Western cinema at the time and infused it with Chinese opera tropes, causing it to be rejected at its release, but time has made it a chilling classic for cinephiles.

Dumplings (2004) 
This movie has all of the elements to make it a classic of Hong Kong cinema, involving an ageing actress who begins to dabble in cannibalism in order to combat her encroaching wrinkles. Dumplings has a little bit of eye candy for both foodies and horror fanatics alike and stars crazy reality TV star Ling Bai as the chef who serves up the most “delicious” baby dumplings in all of Hong Kong. Lots "ewwww" moments to be found in this gem.

The Eye (2002)
The Pan Brothers directed this supernatural film, considered one of the best Chinese horror movies ever made. The movie follows a woman who undergoes a retina transplant and immediately begins to see ghostly apparitions following the procedure. The visions are usually followed by some pretty gruesome death sequences that will surely give you the willies. The Eye spawned a horrible American remake, which only helped to strengthen the original's place as a very scary horror movie.

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
This Cantonese romantic comedy horror film staring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, and produced by Tsui Hark, sparked a trend of folklore ghost films in the Hong Kong film industry and is probably the most amusing film in this grouping. Leslie Cheung plays a journeying tax collector who falls in love with a ghost that’s trapped in servitude to a sinister demoness. Far from scary, this is a ghost movie for those of you that can’t handle more sinister films about paranormal activity.

Happy hauntings!

READ: The Ghost of Stone Tiger Hutong: A Beijing Halloween Tale

Images: u.osu.edu, allhorror.com, theatreofblood.se, horrorpediadotcom.files.wordpress.com, cinemablend