Any horror fan with eyes in their head has noticed the influx of Asian horror over the last decade or so. The shelves of Best Buy, Borders and Amazon.com are clogged with DVDs and books hailing from Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea and the multiplexes are jammed with remakes of the same films. With so much being imported, it can’t all be good, and it isn’t. Finding new and exciting fears is part of what makes our beloved genre great, and there are plenty to be had if one is willing to open their mind beyond countless slasher flicks and the same recycled stolen Stephen King plotlines (not that there is anything wrong with some good ol’ American horror). So take my hand, and join me as we look at some treasures of Asia you might not be familiar with as we look at Japan’s In the Miso Soup(1997) and Hong Kong’s We’re Going to Eat You (1980).

Many readers of mainstream literature are familiar with Japan’s most acclaimed author, Haruki Murakami, but few know about the other Murakami.

Resurrection Mary, Chicago’s most famous spectre, has had a dying off, if you will, over the past 20 years. Though there have been some occasional sightings in the last decade or so, the most recent sighting dates to 2001, by a young couple travelling northbound on Archer Avenue through the town of Justice, Illinois, in the vicinity of Resurrection Cemetery. They claim to have seen a young woman dressed in a white evening gown, walking northbound on Archer Avenue. Curiosity grabbing hold of them, they turned around after driving some blocks up the road, and heading back the way they came from. To their surprise, the woman in white was no longer to be seen. After the frightful experience, the young man and woman both swore off driving down Archer Avenue for the rest of their lives.

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The Stepp Cemetery, located in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest just north of Bloomington, and south of Martinsville, Indiana is home to a famous legend about the grave of a baby named Lester, and his protective mother's ghost: the "Lady in Black." She is rumored to wear the black dress of a lady in mourning, her hair is long and white, and she is said to haunt her dead baby's grave, lamenting and mourning her loss as she sits watching from her perch on the "warlock seat" (a stump in the shape of a chair). She is vigilant and protective, and she is said to chase unsuspecting visitors away when they get near her baby's grave. The baby, Lester, died as an infant in 1937, and the true cause of death was unknown only until recently. The variations of the legend told of many differing and fantastic ways that both the mother and the baby met their demise.