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.

Egg Fear

I've spent most of today writing an outline for a new horror cartoon called 'eggs'. A while ago, me, Steve, Chris and John started to talk about making a portmanteau horror, basically an excuse for us to make some shorts together, and find a way to package them as a whole.

I've had an idea for some time about a little horror film called 'eggs', so when I came downstairs this morning to discover that all but one of the eggs I had had burst in the carton, I knew that if I didn't write the outline today, I would surely die, or at least become possessed by some unspeakable horror. I just wished that it had been a nicer omen, because I really wanted eggs for breakfast, but that's how horror works, it's no respecter of dietary regimes. Unless it's brains.

I'm a bit worried about the idea of a horror cartoon. In live action, despite the effects involved, we can sympathise with the characters that are being 'horrored', because they're like us, and they live in a real world, so the anomaly that visits them is out of the ordinary, and therefore scary (even in a made up place, like a spaceship, we understand the physicality of the world. In a made up environment in a cartoon, everything is an 'effect', so perhaps we don't feel as creeped out as we would if we watched a real person being scared... I don't know, and as I'm writing this, I'm going 'ah but what about thingy'. A few weeks ago, I saw the Pearce Sisters by Luis Cook, which has just won an award at the British Animation Awards and a BAFTA. I think it works as horror, it's grim and beautifully made, have a look...

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I just ordered my new computer this week, so I can work on these new films at home. I'm well excited, and can't wait to get started on them. As i was writing the eggs outline, I kept thinking 'How the hell am I going to make that work?'. I've got a feeling that that thought will be bouncing around my head for a good few months...