Japanese director embraces horror
When Hideo Nakata was looking for a way to break into Hollywood, he wanted to avoid the types of horror movies with which he made his name back home.
The original Japanese Ringu and Ringu 2, psychological thrillers about a cursed video that kills its viewers within seven days, were huge successes.
The Hollywood version of The Ring starred Naomi Watts and was an international hit in autumn 2002.
But Nakata wanted to get away from horror to escape the "inevitable" comparisons between his Japanese and Hollywood creations, he tells the BBC World Service's The Ticket programme.
"Ironically, it turned out I directed The Ring 2," he says of the new US version of the sequel he originally made in his home country in 1999.
I would call it 'quiet horror'
Hideo Nakata
"But at the same time, I feel very happy because I was trying very hard to make a movie there [Hollywood], and I thought the script itself was very interesting."
Nakata is one of the directors who have helped establish a new wave of Japanese psychological horror that relies more on the viewer's mind to create terror than graphic or gory visuals.
That style has not been lost in his first Hollywood movie, he says.
"I would call it 'quiet horror'. It's quiet in terms of soundtrack, and subtle in terms of images."
In such subtle films, ghosts would appear and do little but stare "with sad, vengeful eyes", he says. "That's scary enough."
"That's the way we would think the ghost in the movies would look - more natural, more believable, more than a ghost or evil existence attacking the character.
Now a Western audience is more patient, more tolerant of quiet expressions in horror movies
Hideo Nakata
"It used to be a little bit boring for a Western audience, but now a Western audience is more patient, more tolerant of quiet expressions in horror movies."
Watts also stars in The Ring 2, together with child actor David Dorfman, who plays her son.
Nakata says The Ring 2 has a very different story to Ringu 2.
"It's almost a love triangle," Nakata adds. "Whereas Ringu 2 is about a bunch of people who have to deal with the curse of the tape."
Nakata will make a new version of Hong Kong horror The Eye
Nakata will stay in Hollywood for his next project, another remake of an Asian psychological horror - The Eye, originally from Hong Kong.
But he hopes to be back in Japan next year to make another traditional ghost story.
"I would like to explore the possibility of doing another kind of movie," he adds.
"I have directed two documentary movies and straight drama, but unfortunately those type of movies are not as famous as my horror."
posted by basileus @ 4:24 PM
