the undead body; the latter section contains some of Marak’s keenest insights. As she
succinctly points out, both cultures regard the body of the dead as fundamentally polluted, as
well as both defiled and defiling. American horror narratives, however, hold a macabre interest
with the gory details of the dead, while Japanese works tend to be much more restrained. Fans
of the American cable series The Walking Dead will enjoy the narratives Marak examines in
this section, such as Romero’s Night o f the Living Dead and Capcom’s groundbreaking video
game Resident Evil.
The last unit of the book, and the segment in which Marak’s analysis really shines,
tackles narratives pertaining to The Divine and the Unholy. Marak illustrates the dissimilar
cultural cues represented to American and Japanese horror viewers through an analysis of the
American and Japanese concepts of both demons and religion. This juxtaposition identifies
how America’s predominantly Christian culture and Japan’s Buddhist belief system contain
vastly different characteristic mechanisms and represent the broadest differences in American
and Japanese horror narratives. Fans of survival horror games will especially appreciate
Marak’s analysis of the religious layers contained in the eponymous videogame, Silent Hill.
While mostly illuminating and comprehensive, there are some negative aspects to this
study. For example, many times Marak’s narrative analysis becomes bogged down in longwinded plot summaries. In addition, the conclusion introduces many examples that would have
fit better within the main sections of the study; for example, her discussion of pacing within
American and Japanese narratives and a fleeting discussion of the American remakes of
Japanese horror movies may leave some readers feeling short changed.
The positive aspects of Japanese and American Horror far surpass the detractions.
While at first glance it may look like Japanese and American horror narratives are not that
different, Marak’s work peels back the layers to demonstrate that only by understanding the
differences between the cultural cues of American and Japanese horror tales can one begin to
understand the nuances the narratives portray.
John J. May, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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