Many directors keep returning to the same themes and motifs again and again. Alfred Hitchcock liked to torture ice queens (Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Tippi Hedren), while Luis Bunuel, the master surrealist, subverted everyday reality with bizarre and disturbing imagery, like a sleeper returning to a familiar dream (or nightmare).
Scriptwriter-turned-director Yoshihiro Nakamura likes plots where the facade of ordinary reality begins to crack — or dissolve altogether, with the heroes forced to deal with the often unpleasant consequences.
The obnoxious late-night DJ of Nakamura's horror film "Booth" (2005) is taking calls from listeners when the voice of his dead lover comes over the wires, calling him a liar. The 14-year-old heroine of the same director's "Route 225" (2006) and her pudgy kid brother are walking home from the park when they find themselves not only lost in their own neighborhood, but trapped in another dimension.