Series’ haunting spin on internment camps
American When George internment Takei camp was sent in Arkansas to a Japanese as a child, he didn’t quite understand the seriousness of the situation. A Southern California native, he was fascinated by the bayous that flourished within and around the camp’s barbed wire fences, the trees that grew from water and the tadpoles that evolved swiftly, losing tails and growing legs. “I had never seen anything like that,” Takei says. “It was science fiction.” But for his parents, being imprisoned in an “Arkansas swampland” was devastating. They were forced to give up their business and their house. Their bank accounts were frozen. They were stripped of everything. The internment was a dual experience for the family, between generations that could grasp the gravity of the situation and Takei, who was too young to comprehend it fully. That’s part of the intergenerational experience, one that the AMC series “The Terror: Infamy” tries to grapple with. The anthology show’s second season
AMC’s ‘Terror’ builds empathy by combining history, horror
premieres at 9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 12.
But aside from casting light on “a vitally important chapter of American history” — one Takei believes all Americans should know by heart — the new chapter of “The Terror” is also about Chester Nakayama, whose dreams of becoming a photographer are uprooted by Executive Order 9066.
“He has embraced his Americanness so fully, he’s sort of blind to the inevitability that’s going to come when his own country doesn’t exactly embrace him back,” says codirector Alexander Woo.
But that’s not all. As Chester’s community is being rounded up and imprisoned, a mysterious presence haunts them, warping his photographs and inflicting violence. “The Terror: Infamy” took inspiration from Japanese ghost stories, embedding those motifs to become an intergenerational story in every sense.
“We fused this true historic horror story with the cultural literary form, the cinema form of Japan, the kaidan, the ghost tale stories, to incorporate some of the superstitions that the immigrant generation brought with them,” Takei says.
This is, after all, not just Chester’s story. “We’re also telling the story of the immigrant generation, the immigrant story,” Takei says.
Woo says the Japanese ghost tales were infused into the story because he didn’t want “The Terror” to feel like a “museum piece.” But the motif also serves another purpose.
“One of the things a genre like horror does so well is it worms under your skin into your brain,” Woo says. “We employed that effect that helps you feel and get into the skin of the characters of the stories we’re telling.”
A “museum piece” would suggest that these stories of internment are far removed from today. But Woo believes that they really aren’t.
“That is, sadly, a story that has repeated itself many, many times. It would have been relevant if we had told this story five years ago, or 10 years ago, or 30 years ago, or 50 years in the future,” he says. “It would’ve been relevant any time.”
The series seeks to create empathy in the viewers through horror and history in a story with obvious echoes of today’s news.
“They will be shocked and terrorized by what they see happening to innocent people, unjustly imprisoned, in the most unAmerican way,” Takei says. “And yet, the human spirit will survive.” Grace Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: grace.li@ sfchronicle.com