The origins of 'The Harrowed Man'...

While I'm on the subject of the film script I'm trying to write (of which I will post a snippet from the WIP treatment later this week!), and of  other horror films, I guess I should talk a bit about where my idea came from.

As derivative as it might seem, I actually got the idea after watching a horror film. But my idea didn't stem from a desire to homage this film, neither was it because it had short comings I felt could be done better (the latter couldn't be further from the truth).

I should start by talking about a Spanish horror called [*rec]. It's probably their equivalent of '28 Days Later', a reporter and camera man filming a fly-on-the-wall documentary about a local fire station accompany a fire crew to a call-out at a block of flats, where an old lady has become distressed. When they get there, turns out there's a rage-zombie virus, the building is quarantined and no one is allowed out.

It's all good, bloody zombie movie fun, with a couple of solid shocks thrown in.

Manuela Velasco as Angela Vidal, the film's heroine.  She's had a bad night, and it's about to get worse...

However, at the end of the film - and I'm going to keep things vague here for those who have not seen the film (which you should go remedy as soon as possible!) - it takes a turn which I was not expecting, and actually succeeds in going to a darker and more frightening place.

Without going in to too much detail, there was something in the final act which pretty much freaked me out - a combination of the performance of an actor with a very unique physical appearance, prosthetic make up, a smidgeon of VFX, intense acting, and the way that scene was shot.

I could have done with some of this after watching [*rec]...

Now, I'm not usually bothered by Horror films. They're either good, bloody fun (c.f. any good Zombie movie), or they annoy the hell out of me with their insistence of having the protagonists do really STUPID and ILLOGICAL things that put them in danger, just to keep the plot going. There aren't many horror films which have actually disturbed or frightened me.

But the end of [*rec] did this.

For the next few nights, I either had to sleep with the light on, or I kept waking up, trying to stop the images which had disturbed me from playing over in my mind.

This carried on until 5 days after seeing the film, I watched the 'making of' documentary, and finally saw the reality of how the film makers achieved this scene which had freaked me out so much.

Anyway, a few days later, I was thinking about my reaction to [*rec], and to be honest, I felt pretty stupid. Why was I so disturbed by a silly film? There are worse things in real life, more terrifying realities, that should scare me.

So I began to think about what that worst thing would be for me; I was less than 6 months married at that point, with a 20 month old toddler. Losing my wife and child would be a far more horrific prospect than any fabricated monster from the imagination of a movie maker. How much more terrible would that also be if somehow it were my fault?

Somehow, at that point, the nightmarish thought of being responsible in some way for the death of the two people that mattered most to me, and the disturbing imagery form the finale of [*rec], merged in my mind, and the vague outline of 'The Harrowed Man' formed.

And it's stayed in my mind for four years now, gathering more details each time I've thought about it.

So, now I just need to write the thing, and finally get this 'Harrowed Man' out of my head. Then maybe he can freak out some other people, just as I was disturbed by the end of [*rec]...