Japanese director Masayuki Ochiai was previously best known in the United States for the directing the cult hit Parasite Eve. All that will change now that Lions Gate Home Entertainment has released his latest picture, Infection, directly to DVD.
Infection is a disturbing tale that tackles one of Ochiais favorite themes, genetics and lots of sick deaths. A team of doctors and nurses accidentally kill a patient and try to cover it up but as a weird disease spreads through the hospital turning them one by one into a pile of weird goo they begin to turn on one another.
Buy the Infection DVD
Daniel Robert Epstein: In Infection you wait a long time to show the infected bodies but you have the actors reacting to them. Did that come about in editing or was that always the plan?
Masayuki Ochiai: I was totally sure that I should do that because in a horror movie it is important to make the audience imagine what is there.
DRE: Did you mean the movie to be as funny as it is?
MO: At a screening the other day with an American audience I was surprised to hear people laughing when they first saw the body. Though I did think that some American audiences might laugh because when it was shown in a Japanese theater I saw some Americans in there laughing at that same scene.
DRE: To me a big part of Japanese horror is that the movies often make little to no sense, I dont know if they make more sense to a Japanese person but Americans dont often get it. Infection has a little bit of that aspect towards the end but how important is it for you to make the story make perfect sense?
MO: Most of my productions are said to be not that reasonable.
DRE: Does it make more sense to a Japanese audience?
MO: I am happy to hear that question because at the first Q & A session after the movie I was expecting a lot of people to be asking what the ending meant. No one asked so I feel like people got it. Did it make sense to you?
DRE: I thought I understood what was going on then there is that next twist that threw me.
Was Infection based on anything real?
MO: 15 years ago I created a TV series in Japan called Tales of the Unusual which was very much like The Twilight Zone. The movie Infection is based on one of those half hour episodes we did on that show.
Plus also it wasnt just the physical backdrop of a hospital but the social backdrop as well. Many hospitals in Japan are being questioned and therefore are losing our trust. Thats almost equivalent to horror.
DRE: Do hospitals frighten you?
MO: When I was three years old my aunt died of an acute appendix. Then at the hospital everyone went to watch her operation but me, so I was abandoned in the hallway for hours. I was really terrified. That was my first impression of a hospital as a lonely area.
DRE: For some reason an Asian womans face with needles sticking out of her hands can look much scarier than a Caucasian woman doing the same. Do you agree?
MO: Its all in the makeup but it may be scarier also because the Japanese woman in that scene looks much younger than her age. She almost looks like a child.
We placed the needles on the womans hands very specifically. We decided which part of the hand to use then how much of the needle should be sticking out. Its a very careful process.
DRE: At this point in America you are most famous for directing Parasite Eve, how do you look back on that film?
MO: I didnt even know that Parasite Eve was known here. I would love to redo Parasite Eve in Hollywood because I was not really happy with the circumstances I was under when I had to create it. First of all I was forced by the producers to make it a love story. There were so many compromises I had to make that it couldnt be a true horror movie. Another thing is that there is a theory that all human beings go back hundreds of thousands of years to one African woman. I would like to see that kind of wide historical viewpoint in a remake of Parasite Eve.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Infection is a disturbing tale that tackles one of Ochiais favorite themes, genetics and lots of sick deaths. A team of doctors and nurses accidentally kill a patient and try to cover it up but as a weird disease spreads through the hospital turning them one by one into a pile of weird goo they begin to turn on one another.
Buy the Infection DVD
Daniel Robert Epstein: In Infection you wait a long time to show the infected bodies but you have the actors reacting to them. Did that come about in editing or was that always the plan?
Masayuki Ochiai: I was totally sure that I should do that because in a horror movie it is important to make the audience imagine what is there.
DRE: Did you mean the movie to be as funny as it is?
MO: At a screening the other day with an American audience I was surprised to hear people laughing when they first saw the body. Though I did think that some American audiences might laugh because when it was shown in a Japanese theater I saw some Americans in there laughing at that same scene.
DRE: To me a big part of Japanese horror is that the movies often make little to no sense, I dont know if they make more sense to a Japanese person but Americans dont often get it. Infection has a little bit of that aspect towards the end but how important is it for you to make the story make perfect sense?
MO: Most of my productions are said to be not that reasonable.
DRE: Does it make more sense to a Japanese audience?
MO: I am happy to hear that question because at the first Q & A session after the movie I was expecting a lot of people to be asking what the ending meant. No one asked so I feel like people got it. Did it make sense to you?
DRE: I thought I understood what was going on then there is that next twist that threw me.
Was Infection based on anything real?
MO: 15 years ago I created a TV series in Japan called Tales of the Unusual which was very much like The Twilight Zone. The movie Infection is based on one of those half hour episodes we did on that show.
Plus also it wasnt just the physical backdrop of a hospital but the social backdrop as well. Many hospitals in Japan are being questioned and therefore are losing our trust. Thats almost equivalent to horror.
DRE: Do hospitals frighten you?
MO: When I was three years old my aunt died of an acute appendix. Then at the hospital everyone went to watch her operation but me, so I was abandoned in the hallway for hours. I was really terrified. That was my first impression of a hospital as a lonely area.
DRE: For some reason an Asian womans face with needles sticking out of her hands can look much scarier than a Caucasian woman doing the same. Do you agree?
MO: Its all in the makeup but it may be scarier also because the Japanese woman in that scene looks much younger than her age. She almost looks like a child.
We placed the needles on the womans hands very specifically. We decided which part of the hand to use then how much of the needle should be sticking out. Its a very careful process.
DRE: At this point in America you are most famous for directing Parasite Eve, how do you look back on that film?
MO: I didnt even know that Parasite Eve was known here. I would love to redo Parasite Eve in Hollywood because I was not really happy with the circumstances I was under when I had to create it. First of all I was forced by the producers to make it a love story. There were so many compromises I had to make that it couldnt be a true horror movie. Another thing is that there is a theory that all human beings go back hundreds of thousands of years to one African woman. I would like to see that kind of wide historical viewpoint in a remake of Parasite Eve.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
"Infection" is a one of 6 films of "J horror theater" project, and I guess this project is not longer anymore, before it releases all the films. So I'd say we are lucky, because we can see his film before the project went down.