Haunted House in Japan

Posted September 1st, 2009 in Japan, Ume's Interests No Comments »

Some people love listening to scary stories and going to hunted houses… well, I don’t mind doing that occasionally to have some excitement and thrills, but not everyday. 🙁 I mean, Japanese horror is really really scary! I read an article about UK film board – Britain’s film board banned the sale of a Japanese horror DVD due to its extreme violence which could cause psychological harm to audiences.

I had many chances of going to hunted houses in Japan before. When I went to Ise (an famous city for Ise Ebi <a kind of prawn> and Ise Jingu <Ise shrine> in Mie prefecture) on a school trip in year 6, my teacher insisted us to go inside of a hunted house. Even though the hunted house was just a typical small one, I screamed saying “noooo!!” to the teacher :p In the end I was the only one who didn’t go inside, and stayed outside waiting for all my classmates coming out from the horror house.
When I was around 17 years old, I went to Osaka Expoland with my friends. This place is like an amusement park, and there’re many rides and games that you can play and spend a time with.
At the expoland, they had few kinds of new hunted houses that they’d been advertising on tv. I remember one of them was “Biohazard”, and another one was “Bancho Sarayashiki”. “Banchō Sarayashiki” is a Japanese ghost story of Okiku who died and comes out every night counting nine plates with terrible howling and sobbing. You can read the story from here. (apparently this story has alternate endings)
Anyway, as the names indicate, “Biohazard” is Western style hunted house and “Banchō Sarayashiki” was Japanese style one. I didn’t really want to go inside, but it was a very hot summer day and my friends kind of forced me to go inside. :p We could imagine that “Biohazard” there would be lots of zombies and they chase down people who go inside. After a short discussion we decided to go for “Banchō Sarayashiki”.
… I can’t describe here how scary it was! Seriously, I almost had a heart attack :p All the ghosts there were actors, so they really really ACTed as if they’re real ghost. The inside of the hunted house was amazing though. There was a river, an old Japanese-looking bridge, trees, houses… it looked like a really “old town in Japan”. As I walked down the “old Japan town” with friends, I was holding my friends’ arms all the time because I didn’t want to be left behind. I walked really really slowly, but once a ghost came out I screamed and pushed my friends toward the ghost, and I run away by myself :p ….. yes, my friends complained me about it afterwards but I really wanted to save myself (lol)
I think it was my last experience of going inside of a horror house. Since then I never go to horror house / hunted house .. anywhere!
If you like to have scary experience, however, I recommend you to try going to a hunted house in Japan !


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