Ghost Town

Ricky Gervais finds out that he "died a little bit" in Ghost Town (Paramount)

Ricky Gervais is a funny man. The British comedian first gained attention by making us squirm and laugh at the daily horrors of the workplace in the original version of The Office. Then he mined Hollywood for savage humor with Extras, a grunt's eye view of the film industry. But Hollywood has been slow to tap into his talent, granting him only a few unchallenging supporting roles. Ghost Town (opening September 19 throughout San Diego), however, finally rewards him with his first starring role and in a romantic comedy no less.

Bleach: Memories of Nobody

Bleach: Memories of Nobody plays June 11 and 12 in select theaters (Viz Media)

Seiji Horibuchi founded Viz Media to introduce Japanese manga (comic books) to American audiences. Now more than two decades later, the company has become a leading distributor of both manga and anime here in the U.S. The company's latest innovation is to bring anime movies to mall theaters for two-day engagements that allow fans to see their favorite anime characters on the big screen. The first Naruto movie, Ninja Clash in the Land of the Snow, effectively employed this strategy, and now the first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody, opens in more than three hundred theaters nationwide on June 11 and 12 at 7:30pm (in San Diego it will play at AMC Mission Valley 20 Theaters, Horton Plaza Theaters and Edwards Mira Mesa). The film is designed more for fans than for newcomers to anime but for $1.99 you can download (legally) the first episode and have the basics to enjoy the first film.

Shutter

A picture's worth a thousand words... Shutter (20th Century Fox)

This year alone Hollywood is scheduled to release remakes of the Asian horror films One Missed Call, The Eye, Shutter, The Echo, The Addicted, and A Tale of Two Sisters. One Missed Call and The Eye have both come and gone with mostly poor reviews and lukewarm box office. The latest to arrive in theaters is Shutter (opening March 21 throughout San Diego), a remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name. But since J-horror (Japanese horror) has proven more popular and more familiar, this U.S. remake relocates its Thai story in Japan.

Thailand has a fairly long and increasingly rich collection of horror films. These films may not have the budgets of their Japanese, Hong Kong or South Korean counterparts, but they are invested with an energetic, often over the top sense of the supernatural. Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun made the original Shutter a neat little supernatural chiller that took The Grudge’s notion of a vengeful spirit in a different direction. Pisanthanakun’s film suffered from excessive melodrama and occasional absurdity (including one character leaping out of a building not once but twice and surviving both improbable falls). But all in all it was a satisfying low-key horror tale with effective use of supernatural elements and a kicker of an ending.

The Orphanage

If you have ever seen or met Guillermo Del Toro at the San Diego Comic-Con, then you know he's a filmmaker who is sincere about two things: championing the horror genre and helping young filmmakers. I was meeting up with Del Toro at the Comic-Con for an interview a few years back and was impressed by the fact that he took time to speak with filmmakers who came up to him after his panel. He also willingly accepted DVDs of their work. In fact, at one point he turned to his assistant and asked, in reference to the DVDs that had just been handed to him, "where are my treasures?" Now I've seen filmmakers toss the DVDs handed to them at the Comic-Con, but not Del Toro. And he apparently even watches them as well, although he says it may take some time before he gets to each. Now Del Toro shows his support for both horror and neophyte filmmakers by producing the feature debut of Spainish director J.A. Bayona and writer Sergio G. Snchez, El Orphanato/The Orphanage (opening January 4 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas).

If you are familiar with Del Toro's work then you can immediately see why he would be eager to support Bayona, Snchez and The Orphanage. Snchez' story has much in common with Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. Both deal with orphan children and the supernatural in unexpected ways. Both Bayona and Snchez then approach this ghost story with the same kind of humanism as Del Toro. But The Orphanage does not come off as a Del Toro imitation. Bayona and Snchez imprint their own unique stamp on the film and reveal themselves as promising filmmakers.

The Messengers

The Messengers (opening February 3 throughout San Diego) is not, as is popular at the moment, a Hollywood remake of an Asian horror film. But it is a Hollywood horror film that imports the Asian filmmaking team of Oxide and Danny Pang. After scoring a handful of hits in Hong Kong, the Pang brothers have crossed the Pacific to try their hand at scaring up an American audience. The Pang brothers drew attention with their first feature, Bangkok Dangerous, a violent Hong Kong actioner with style to burn. They then toned down the violence and turned up the atmosphere for the creepy chiller The Eye and its sequel. The Eye has already caught Hollywoods eye with Tom Cruise's company quickly snapping up the U.S. remake rights. But its Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures that snapped up the talented Pangs for their first English language film.

Dark Water

Jennifer Connelly stars in the remake of Dark Water (Buena Vista)

In a summer of remakes, Hollywood once again turns to Asian horror for inspiration. This time it’s Dark Water (opening July 8 throughout San Diego), based on the novel by Koji Suzuki and film by Hideo Nakata.

When Dreamworks remade the Japanese chiller The Ring in 2002, and scored big at the box office, it helped launch a cycle of Asian influenced remakes. The Ring 2 and The Grudge followed. Now comes Dark Water and soon we’ll also have The Eye, and there are about a dozen other Asian properties (not all horror) waiting in the wings for their American adaptation. Roy Lee, a producer who has been involved with The Ring, The Grudge and now Dark Water, is the one who had the bright idea to take the most popular Asian films and remake them in Hollywood. Lee understood that Hollywood would be receptive to this idea because the films were from familiar genres and had proven their popularity in existing markets. As he explained to me in 2002: “By seeing a completed movie, they [Hollywood executives] could see what works and what doesn’t work. Because it could have easily been a writer submitting a script with the same premise but this just happens to work out better. It’s easier to access.”

The Grudge

Sarah Michelle Gellar stars in the remake of The Grudge (Columbia Pictures)

The Grudge (opening October 22 throughout San Diego) is the first American remake of a popular Asian film to actually employ the director of the original film. The Grudge is a remake of the Japanese horror or J-horror film, Ju-On directed by Takashi Shimizu. The title refers to a curse born of a grudge held by someone who dies in the grip of powerful anger. This evil presence gathers in the places frequented by the person in life, and it can be lethal to anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with it. And each time it claims a new victim, it perpetuates itself even more forcefully.

The remake is produced by American horror-meister Sam Raimi, and the decision was made not to transplant the story to America. The setting would remain in Japan and many of the original people involved would also repeat their duties: Takashi Shimizu would again direct, Taka Ichise would serve as a producer, and Takako Fuji and Yuya Ozeki would repeat their roles as the specters in the film. But American characters—and stars—would be added. So the resulting story now has Sarah Michelle Gellar (of Buffy fame) as Karen, a foreign exchange student volunteering at a care center in Tokyo to earn community service credits at school. She’s sent to check in on an older woman (Grace Zabriskie) whose regular caretaker has disappeared. When Karen arrives at the house, she not only finds the woman but also discovers a small boy who’s been shut up in the closet. The boy is cut and bleeding, and says his name is Toshiro (Yuya Ozeki). After some more strange occurrences, Karen encounters the dark, evil spirit that inhabits the house and the next thing she knows, the woman is dead.

The Ring

Naomi Watts stars in the remake of Japan's The Ring (Dreamworks)

Did you hear about the one about the videotape that when you watch it, you die in seven days? Sound like an urban myth? Well for the characters in The Ring (opening October 18 throughout San Diego), this turns out to be much more than an urban myth, it turns out to be a terrifying reality.

The appeal of this simple premise has already been proven in Japan, that’s where the Koji Suzuki’s book, The Ring, was published and where the first version of the film was made by Hideo Nakata. The 1998 film The Ring was so wildly popular in Asia that it spawned a sequel, a prequel, a TV mini-series, mangas, and a Korean remake. Now Dreamworks Pictures has decided to bring the story to the screen Hollywood style. And the film is one of more than a dozen Asian properties recently purchased by Hollywood studios for American remakes.

The Devil’s Backbone

Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone

When Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro was four-years-old, he had a life altering experience. After watching an episode of The Outer Limits, Del Toro's brother dressed up like the bug-eyed monster from the TV show to scare his younger sibling. "Then," the adult Del Toro recalls, "I woke up and had an urgent need to pee. I looked around and saw monsters everywhere. There was this fluffy carpet and I thought every single strand of the carpet was a finger and in the closet I saw a big monster. I was so scared that I resigned myself to pee in the bed. That happened almost every night for a couple of weeks and my mother said ‘If you pee in your bed again, I'm gonna really give you a good one.' That night I woke up and wanted to go to the bathroom so I spoke to the monsters in the room and I said that if you let me pee, I will be your friend forever.' They allowed me and here I am peeing happily and making monster movies."