Interview: ‘The Curse’ director Kenichi Ugana on the dangers of social media & favorite scene from ‘Braindead’

Writer/director Kenichi Ugana’s The Curse “mostly delivers on its promise of ghoulish imagery and chill-inducing frights,” I wrote in my review. The film, which played Fantastic Fest last month, harpoons themes about social media addiction and our collective desperation to be liked. While platforms like Twitter and Instagram remain vital to our livelihoods and sense of community, they’re “both incredibly useful and scary, but the scariest thing about it is that, at the end of the day, it’s run by humans,” Ugana shares with B-Sides & Badlands over email.

“One of the conveniences and dangers of social media is that people in completely different places can read your posts without any time lag,” he continues, noting his decision to film overseas. “While Taiwan and Japan have cultural differences, they also have many similarities, so I thought it would be the perfect location for this shoot.”

From his personal experience, Ugana tries to refrain from posting “my personal feelings on social media,” he admits. “This is because I’ve seen values change as times change, and how people are criticized for it.” Instead, he captures those emotions in his work, pegged to a particular time in history. Conversely, he utilizes his socials as a way to promote his films once they hit festivals across the world. “Being invited to film festivals and having my films written about is only possible because there are people there who have seen my films, and I think I should never forget to be grateful for that.”

While the overall version of The Curse didn’t change much from the initial script, he did change up the climax, where he “made several changes to the lines and movements after watching the performance on set,” he notes. One unwavering aspect of the supernatural feature is the use of Taiwanese ghosts for the haunting spectre. “Japanese ghosts wear white clothes and don’t have tongues sticking out,” he says, “but Taiwanese ghosts wear red clothes and have long tongues sticking out.”

From drawing influence from such greats as Kiyoshi Kurosawa, whose 1999 film Charisma he loves most (“It’s the perfect balance for me between absurdity and humor in film,” he says), to a recent inspiration in French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, Ugana’s work oozes a quality that hooks into the long tradition of horror filmmaking. “His films are funny and cynical, and they always challenge our values,” Ugana says of Dupieux’s work.

Where the cold open of The Curse sears itself on the brain (you won’t forget it, I promise), Ugana names the climax of 1992’s Braindead as one of his favorite scenes in all of horror. “I always love the moment when things start happening one after another, it becomes chaotic, and values are destroyed,” he says.

The Curse is currently making rounds on the festival circuit.