Can’t say I’m not a bit surprised at the news that pseudo-controversial Belgian filmmaker Koen Mortier is taking on Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk’s collection of short stories. Mortier made the film Ex Drummer, which was slightly notorious at TIFF last year as one of those fucked up punk excess movies, a movie that pushed boundaries for the sake of doing so. I never managed to catch the film at the festival, but it has remained on the List of Interest ever since.
Mortier is attached to adapt Haunted (he’ll write and direct) by way of former agent Brian Levy, who has formed a production outift called New School Media. Mortier was, no surprise, a former client of Levy’s during his agency days.
The book, which features what might be Palahniuk’s most ridiculous array of damaged humans, is a sort of short story anthology tied together by a plot which traps a cadre of 17 writers (plus two organizers) inside an old theatre during an extreme writer’s retreat. It’s a difficult bit of source material. While writing stories to earn their freedom, many of the writers decide to sabotage the retreat’s living conditions in order to heighten the tension within, the better to package and sell the experience as a reality TV show once it’s all over. The book is made up of 23 short stories, like the scatological cautionary masturbation tale Guts, available on Palahniuk’s website. It’s a shit-stained Canterbury Tales, arguably pointless, and I can see many ways that it could end up on film; I can’t wait to hear how it actually happens.
11 comments
haunted is actually pretty shitty..the epiphony that comes to palahinuk's characters in his other books that make all the disgusting stuff you read mean something, never comes in this one making ut just a excercise in how revolting and shocking his stories can be…fast track something like "survivor" so we can actually have a story with some substance and not just horror stories
Ugh, it took me forever to read "Guts" because it made everything below my chest tighten and ache, so I had to read it in short spurts. It'll be interesting to see how they effectively bring that, and the rest of the book to the screen
this could be done well. i see it
Guts is gross. I don't need to see a 10-foot intestinal sock stretching from a pool to a 13-year old boys anus
I liked it and steamrolled through the whole thing in a couple of days (years of Fangoria will desensitize you to gore) but I still question the erotic possibilities of making your anus look like Cthulhu's dick. Jacking off is supposed to be easy and painless, that's why men do that instead of getting actual women.
i very interested to see them pull this off. fight clubb was great choke look awsome. but i would rather see them attept to make Invisable Monster into a movie
"Jacking off is supposed to be easy and painless, that's why men do that instead of getting actual women."
You lazy bastard!
I'm a huge fan of Chuck's work, but Haunted just wasnt that great. There's 23 writers on this retreat and they all write just like Chuck Palahniuk… some of the stories were alright but it was just more of the same formula he had been using for his first umpteen books…
Also it seems like it would work better as like, an HBO series. How are you going to take 23 stories and 23 poems and a narrative and fuck it into a two hour hole?
Now what I'd like to see is someone try to tackle Rant, which was by far the best thing that Chuck has written in a long time.
Haunted is good, but not great. I personally want to see movie versions of Lullaby, Survivor, and Invisible Monsters.
When I saw the title of the article, I was hoping that Travis Barker, formerly of Blink 182, would be playing the lead role in Monster (horribly disfigured lead character). I'm sure that movie would crash and burn
Haunted wasn't bad…maybe I was just prepped for it properly by having to read Faulkner at the same time due to a college class I had at the time. I'd honestly like to see Survivor made into a movie first (you guys reported on it being optioned like two years ago), and Lullaby could be made into a really darkly funny movie if they took out the part toward the end *spoiler*
the grimoire with worse spells and such.
*end spoiler*
The concept of someone accidentally using a "culling song" in everyday life has lots of possibilities for a black comedy. After that, I'd say Invisible Monsters, for sure; the idea behind everyone "needing" a burden to bear to make their lives feel worthwhile is an interesting look at things. Haunted is low on the list, but it could be good if the angle on the film adaptation was right.
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