Fairy Tale and Film

Ringu
’s Sadako making as little difference as 
burning the family home down in 
Ju-on
), with the quest for vengeance 
never abated.
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Wood’s notion of the ‘return of the repressed’ is thus 
updated. The ‘monsters’ presented are revealed as victims of atrocious 
acts by family members (motivated by ignorance, anger and jealousy) 
yet achieve no peace once their story is told, seeking only to perpetu-
ate the misery they have suffered. In other examples formerly abused 
children may not necessarily assume supernatural powers, but similarly 
horrify in the extremes of violence they prove capable of. 
Audition
(Takashi Miike, 2000) offers the unlikeliest of monsters in 
the slight yet deranged young woman at its centre, Asami (Shiina Eihi). 
Abused as a girl, her profound mistrust of men is further provoked 
by a widowed TV producer who fabricates a reality show to find him-
self a new partner. Of course, the real Asami is not revealed in her 
résumé, or their first date together (in which she attests ‘my family is 
very harmonious, very ordinary’). Instead, she is shown to be the prod-
uct of a very warped background and his dream of finding the ideal 
woman terrifyingly backfires.
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Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) wrongly uses 
his position to attract Asami, and becomes involved with her, yet pays 
a heavy price when she discovers his deception and is almost killed in 
his home before his son finally despatches her. Significantly, however, 
Asami’s monstrosity reflects what others have done to her: her sadism 
emulating the dance teacher who abused her as a child, just as her 

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Houses of Horror 
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deceptiveness mirrors her duplicitous lover (with both parties lying in 
the audition). Takashi’s apparent intent is to warn against an industry 
that legitimates male power, exploits vulnerable figures and danger-
ously obscures reality. In line with the father in 
Ringu
, who experiments 
on his young daughter, or 
Ju-on
’s murderous patriarch, these films chal-
lenge the reprieve that flawed fathers tend to be given in the fairy tale, 
suggesting any ‘monstrosity’ is symptomatic of a greater villain at large, 
namely patriarchy. 
Orphan
(Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009) similarly concerns itself with the 
deceptiveness of appearances, not only in terms of the apparent child 
taken in by a family, but the ease with which maternal blame is used 
to deflect her villainy. A grieving couple, motivated by the loss of their 
stillborn daughter, adopt an unusual girl from an orphanage. However, 
while the mother, Kate (Vera Farmiga), becomes convinced she is mal-
e volent, the father is somewhat sinister in his relationship with Esther 
(Isabelle Fuhrman). Attracted by her creativity, and flattered by her 
devotion to him, he ignores his wife’s suspicions – dismissively allud-
ing to the drink problem she has battled with since losing their baby – 
and is easily taken in by Esther, even as their own children become 
endangered by her. We eventually learn that what appears to be a young 
girl is really a physically stunted woman masquerading as a child. Her 
damaged backstory explains her reasons. Sexually abused by her father 
from a young age, she has since sought to replicate this relationship, 
killing various foster fathers when they reject her advances. Sadly, 
this background is not intended to induce sympathy, but to explain 
her deviancy, revealed as it is after countless acts of violence affirm her 
psychotic nature. The mother is effectively alienated from her husband 
through Esther’s manipulations, and treated with disapproval and dis-
trust by her mother-in-law and psychiatrist, while the impostor seeks to 
take her place in the home by seducing her husband. Rejection results 
in his murder, and Kate is finally forced to despatch her rival with lethal 
force. Unlike female figures in films like 
Ringu
– who offer maternal love 
to the ghosts of abused children, no matter how violent – we are pre-
sented with a warped grown-up here, who, the film asserts, is too dam-
aged to be redeemed and simply needs to be eliminated. On the verge 
of drowning her (emulating a near-tragedy for their surviving daughter, 
due to Kate’s drinking), Esther appeals to her maternal spirit, pleading 
‘please don’t hurt me, mommy’, yet the response is a fatal blow, accom-
panied by the words: ‘I’m not your fucking mummy!’ 
Although heavily criticised, 
Orphan
is an effective shocker, interest-
ingly updating the changeling myth in the fake child who threatens the 

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