Among the coolest experienes we had programming this year's Canadian films was sitting at a Vancouver studio - where they were also filming the "Far Cry" movie, based on a super cool video game - and watching Ernie Barbarash's latest, the creepy ghost story "They Wait".  When a movie can make you jump when your watching it in a boardroom, then you know its got something.  "They Wait" is set in Vancouver during Ghost Month, a Chinese tradition, and let me say, there are lots of ghosts, and few have anything in common with Casper.  The photo is Jaime King in the movie.  Here's a recent e-mail conversation I had with Ernie about "They Wait".

What was your approach to mixing real events with horror in "They Wait"?

* First off, I wouldn?t really call THEY WAIT a horror film. It?s a ghost movie, perhaps a supernatural thriller. To call it a horror film would probably set up false expectations, at least in my opinion. As far as real events are concerned - the film was inspired by real events and traditional Chinese beliefs. The supernatural elements came out of my and the writers? imagination as to what could or would happen. Like any movie, you create the best story you can and tell it in the most effective way possible.

"They Wait" blends both fact and fiction, but cultures as well - East and West - both in the story, but also in the storytelling itself.  Why did you want to use this approach?

* I had no choice. I?m not Chinese, and neither, I believe, were any of the writers, so as a result, there are Western elements in the film as well. But the story itself warrants that ? on one level it?s about the clash of cultures ? a Caucasian woman married to a Chinese man, is forced to confront a new culture and her own preconceived notions of that culture. And there?s a child in the middle of it all, and that of course makes everything a lot more complicated and intense. The clash of cultures is a dynamic that?s at the center of the movie. And of course one of the things that intrigued me about doing this film was that it dealt with a culture that was not my own and allowed me the chance to learn something new while directing the film. But I would be interested in seeing the subject matter tackled by a Chinese filmmaker.

Horror movies can often disguise social critique in their fear  -why do you think this can be so effective?

* Subtext is always more effective than spouting political rhetoric. This is why art is always the first thing to be suppressed by authoritarian regimes, because of the power of film and theatre to raise questions in people?s minds. And horror films specifically touch at the raw root of our primeval fear ? and thus open us up to receiving the social critique at a very deep, visceral level. But then again, so is comedy.

Is there a moment in your movie that frightened you the first time you saw it?

* Yes, the first time I saw how few days we had to shoot the movie :) LOL. Actually, there are several moments that I hope will make people jump. But I don?t want to give them away. Or, I could tell you, but then I?d have to... Well, you know the quote.

What are you most looking forward to at the festival?

* The Film Centre BBQ. It?s the one event I can bring my kids to.

Finally, - what's your favorite horror movie, and why?

* I have several. Early on, THE SHINING and Sam Raimi?s THE EVIL DEAD, and POLTERGEIST all scared the hell out of me the first time I saw them as a teenager. More recently, THE RING takes the prize. My wife and I saw it when we were living in New York it premiered at the horror film festival at Lincoln Center - we were scared out of our wits. I yelled at her for pretending to be Samara before we went to bed that night and she woke me up at 3:30am so I could go with her to the kitchen to get a glass of water because she was too scared to go alone. What scared me? I think it?s not knowing where death could come from at any given moment. It was in the visuals but it was also really in the script ? the structure keeps you going from the first scene to the last ? unlike the standard ghost story, it really kept me off balance because I could often not tell what was going to happen next.

Well Ernie, I think "They Wait" has some of those very qualities.  It's going to be great screening next month.