| Examining how Chinese filmmakers, through the decades, (re)interpreted The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) and its source novel, Gaston Leroux's 1910 Le Fantome de L'Opera, in the Ye Ban Ge Sheng series, as well as how Hollywood and Japan borrowed from each other in the Ringu (Nakata, 1998)/The Ring (Verbinski, 2002) series of remakes, this dissertation uses these cases of cross-cultural interpretations of horror to (1) shed light on the way Hollywood functions and markets in a global post-literate environment, (2) exemplify and illuminate the inner workings of the Hollywood movie development process, (3) demonstrate cross-cultural interpretations and usages of a genre, and (4) pose questions about the universal psychological compulsion for horror movies and their remakes. It proposes that repetition compulsion and regression to childhood are interlinked motivations for the repetitious nature and popularity of horror.; A universalizing of horror iconography globally is part of a growing trend towards the simplification of language and communications---into a metalanguage that works reliably across cultures.; Hollywood's pervasiveness has entrained other cultures to embrace American concepts of fear. As the case studies have shown, Hollywood's ideas of horror have entered the iconography of horror globally, and may serve to forever change the concept of fright in other countries, perhaps in insidious ways.; With Ye Ban Ge Sheng, Chinese filmmakers throughout the twentieth century, under the influence of various regimes, locations, and artistic sensibilities, could employ the same story to reflect vastly different political positions.; With Ringu (1998), we see an example of the successful integration of Hollywood iconographies of horror, with the concomitant rejection of some indigenous elements found in the first movie adaptation, Ringu (1995), and the source novel (1991). As the uncanny remake of Ringu (1998), The Ring essentially reconfigures for an American audience a story that has already undergone extensive Americanization; thus something familiar but altered, with its true origins repressed, returns to haunt global audiences in seemingly fresh new ways. The study of The Ring and other contemporary horror remakes shows how this genre fits into the machination and influence of global genres, Hollywood, and capitalism. |
