More from Moye Ishimoto:
THREE DAYS until, yes, I finally stop this countdown. Just bear with me, all right?
In celebration of our upcoming doc, Terror from Tokyo, to air on IFC this Saturday at 4:30PM, I held an impromptu interview with Nicholas Rucka, film critic and J-horror expert, who helps us dissect the horror that is, uh, Japanese horror. Anyway. I’m running out of words for “horror,” so please, read on and enjoy – after the jump.
Do you believe in ghosts? What about Japanese ghosts?
While I’d love to be all cool and skeptical about the whole ghost thing, I’ve had some weird stuff happen – more than once – that would make it difficult to explain it NOT being something supernatural. So, yeah, I guess I do believe in ghosts. In so far as Japanese ghosts are concerned, well, I suppose since death is an equal opportunity employer, that would carry over to their employees. But let’s look at this empirically: There’s got to be Japanese ghosts, right? Otherwise, how would there be so many creepy Japanese ghost stories?
Okay, so if a Japanese ghost from a J-horror film and an American ghost from its remake got in a fight, who would win?
The Japanese ghost, no question. They’re scarier.
Say you were sitting alone in your house and, all of a sudden, your television turns on and this creepy girl with long black hair started crawling out of it towards you. What’s the first thing you’d do?
Turn off the TV.
What if this creepy girl with long black girl was really hot. Would you ask her out on a date?
But you said she crawled out of my TV, right? Would this be one of those “On-Demand” things? Or is it like that “Spectravision” thing they used to have in hotels where you’ve got to pay for each thing you watched? Anyway, I’m just being cheap. If she’s creepy and hot and had red hair – not black – then I’d be down. (Because black is so, I dunno… typical.)
It turns out that you only have 7 days left to live (before you see the Ring). What are the top ten things you would do in your final days?
1. Start smoking again ‘cuz health and money don’t matter no more! (Kools would be good!)
2. Do a whole buncha narcotics. (Naturally.)
3. Get a facial tattoo. (Heh.)
4. Eat only rare (endangered) and expensive food.
5. Drink only rare and expensive drinks. Something with pearls and flecks of gold, could be good – or a bottle dredged up from the Titanic. Speaking of which:
6. Sink a luxury liner. (No one aboard, of course. And while I’m on the disaster porn:
8. Knock down a building.
9. Ride a motorcycle, a Hell’s Angels motorcycle up Highway 1, whatever damn way and speed I please.
10. Launch that motorcycle in a glorious fiery ball off of the Big Sur coast, at sunset, on the night of the 6th day, so Sadako has no pleasure in taking me alive! Hah hah!
Last but not least, what’s your favorite chick flick?
The dumb joke would be any film with a chick in it (or something like Elektra), but if Bring it On counts, then that would be it.
Bring It On? Who knew. But Nick definitely puts the “itch” in bitch.
[Ed note: Come back tomorrow]