Saturday, March 22, 2008

Faceless Ghosts

I got the idea for 'eggs' from a short story I read years ago, from a book called Oriental Tales of Terror, one of those super-cheap anthologies that I think I picked up from a car-boot sale or a junk shop. I haven't read it in years, although I think the book is kicking around somewhere in my still unpacked moving boxes. All I really remember is the faceless thing, and how much it freaked me out.

I did some googling the other day, and rediscovered some of the folkloric stories of the Faceless Ghost. The original story of the faceless ghost (Noppera-Bo) is spookily similar to the one I've just written, and I don't mind that, as I think that as it's a retelling of an old story, it fixes it in a tradition of storytelling and film-making (reading it back, it's very J-Horror), and because of that it informs the way I'll approach making, telling and designing the film. I just got The Ghost of Mae Nak on DVD, a retelling of a classic Thai ghost tale. I like these kind of Horrors, I think there's something that sticks in your mind about them, as they feel ancient, heartbreaking and invite lots of psychological ideas about memory. They are often kind of romantic in a way, too, and I think that adds to the appeal. I prefer that kind of horror in many ways to slashers or maniac chainsaw killers, they stay with me longer, and they also scare me more.

I'm thinking that I may go for live action for eggs, rather than animation. The more I visualise it, I'm thinking of places I know - the beach, caravan and cafe in the film are all, in my head, based on very specific locations, and I think that maybe it makes more sense to use those locations, although as there is quite a bit of destruction in the story, I'm not sure how I'd pull it off on my 0p budget. Maybe I should just do it and worry about the arson conviction later.