but I wonder if there's some general associations that differ from one country to another.
You bet there are. I was going to send you a link, but I see that someone already beat me to the very best one I've ever found. I'll just quote from it and say: "The Japanese ghost is a thing of summer. [...] The classic type are spawned from steamy weather--squeezed out, as if in some fetid moment, from other things."
Kabuki is a likely source for any creepies you see in movies. They also like to steal things from Buddhism, but I haven't seen that being used in a horror context personally. (Yuu Yuu Hakusho is a prime example of Japanese entertainment stealing ideas from the Buddhist underworld, but most of the demonic things are actually sort of funny.)
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You bet there are. I was going to send you a link, but I see that someone already beat me to the very best one I've ever found. I'll just quote from it and say: "The Japanese ghost is a thing of summer. [...] The classic type are spawned from steamy weather--squeezed out, as if in some fetid moment, from other things."
Kabuki is a likely source for any creepies you see in movies. They also like to steal things from Buddhism, but I haven't seen that being used in a horror context personally. (Yuu Yuu Hakusho is a prime example of Japanese entertainment stealing ideas from the Buddhist underworld, but most of the demonic things are actually sort of funny.)