Movie thoughts

[donroberto]

It is quite possible, and maybe even likely, that a movie version of The 7th Guest will be in pre-production within the next few months and under actual production within a couple of years from now.

If you have any thoughts about what the movie might be like, please share them here. For instance, which actors would play the various roles? What is the most important aspect of the story?

[Locutus]

I didn't read the novel by Costello, so the most fascinating aspect of the game, in my opinion, was the unexplicable course of events. When I played the game the first times, I was dying (he he) to break a puzzle to see a new cut scene. I think it added an unintended (pherpas) spooky spin to the whole atmosphere of the game (something that I miss, in fact, in 'The 11th hour' that have a storyline much more linear). Even the fact that the main character is an 'unknown', is undefined, to me is genius.

I think that a 7th guest motion picture shoud try to recreate that feeling of unexplicable mistery, that sort of paranoia that the original game is able to transmit. In a way, the storyline of the 7th guest is a puzzle in itself and so should be the movie too. I'm thinking at movies such as 'The Others' or 'The sixt sense', for example.

I suggest to keep the paranormal factor as the high priority 

[SpIrIt]

Hmmmm a movie you say...

My thoughts:

- It shouldnt just have to stick to the story written by costello... For a movie project it, imo, contains to little "action"... So it could be a blend of both the game (like the hands in the painting, the visions of Tad and the other guests) and the book and some new stuff.
- Blood and guts are a good thing... but in this case, in small dosage... like Tad looking in a mirror and seeing his reflection cutting its wrists and laughing.
- Please dont let it be the "a group of teenagers gets lost in a house"-story. Id prefer to have just one person lost in the house (but not just in 1st person perspective... but it could be a nice addition like they did in the Doom movie)
- I think it would be awesome if at least some of the original music was used in this movie... its better than most movie scores.
- Can I star in it?
- Let Stauf (Robert) himself be in it (do I really need to say that..?)
- People that should not be in this movie: nosey teenagers(house of wax, texas chainsaw (remake)), archeologists or museum owners on the hunt for treasure (return to the house on the haunted hill) , a happy couple moving in to the house of their dreams (amittyvill horror) or any offspring of the people who died in the house.
- Maybe a drifter looking for shelter in the rundown house. This drifter is not stauf... but who knows. Evil might get its clutches on him en make him become (like) stauf... or not... Or maybe it could be a
- The world inside of the house is not the same as it is outside... meaning that they can break windows and walk out, but if they do so the end up in another room of the house of maybe they evaporate... There is no way out until they finish the puzzle that is the house...
- Dolls! Aside from the main character and Stauf (and the house of course) the dolls should, imo, be part of the storyline.
- It would be cool if the house would be able to change its layout (like in stephen king's Rose Red).
- What Locutus said, the paranormal and occult stuff should not be left out... and the atmosphere in the game was perfect, so it would be great if that could be translated to the movie.
- Master the sound in high quality... the game had good sound... but imagine what you could add to that with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack!
- Tiny hits to the game... like the reoccurrance of objects, lines or maybe even the mousecursors (hand, eye, pyramid).

I could go on forever... but this is my five cents worth...

[Locutus]

- The world inside of the house is not the same as it is outside... meaning that they can break windows and walk out, but if they do so the end up in another room of the house of maybe they evaporate... There is no way out until they finish the puzzle that is the house...

Yes! This remind to me the '1408' movie, based upon a novel of Stephen King! Good thinking, SpIrIt! And, by the way, I agree totally with your other suggestions, especially that one that wants this not to became a teenagers movie 

The one who will going to write the script, should try to remember that he's adapting a puzzle-game, so he gonna play, in a way, with the audience. The author should try to give us a plot who turns in some unexpected ways, to avoid all the haunted-mansion-movie cliches and - likely - catch the audience for a second vision (like the game calls his player again and again; this happens in the story and even in the real world: how many times we played it, since 1993??  )

The scary spin, the spooky aspects of the movie will be strictly entangled with the right atmosphere - as it is in the computer game - so the plot, the photography and the soundtrack should play an huge role in the project.

[donroberto]

Locutus, I second your ideas regarding non-linearity of story and being off-balance by not knowing quite what the heck is going on. It creates tension. That was very much the original spirit (pun) of the game as we conceived it. Part of solving the mysteries of the story was being able to put the disjointed vignettes together in your head in order to make sense out of the events that had occurred in the mansion. That storytelling technique, when done well, can be extremely compelling. I could site many movies that did it well (Pulp Fiction for one) and others that, while interesting and intriguing and clever, perhaps were too disjointed and left the audience more confused than emotionally satisfied (Memento).

Also, the better movies are character driven and cause the audience to identify with the characters and sweep them along the dramatic arc. So I would suggest that by the end of the second act the story has now become clear, and the third act is spent on the dramatic resolution. Or the mystery becomes increasingly clear over the final two acts, ending in a grand ah ha moment.

SpIrIt, I thoroughly enjoyed your bullet point list, especially of those things the movie should NOT contain. I agree that dolls should be an element of some sort. They are scary.

[SpIrIt]

Locutus, I second your ideas regarding non-linearity of story and being off-balance by not knowing quite what the heck is going on. It creates tension. That was very much the original spirit (pun) of the game as we conceived it. Part of solving the mysteries of the story was being able to put the disjointed vignettes together in your head in order to make sense out of the events that had occurred in the mansion. That storytelling technique, when done well, can be extremely compelling. I could site many movies that did it well (Pulp Fiction for one) and others that, while interesting and intriguing and clever, perhaps were too disjointed and left the audience more confused than emotionally satisfied (Memento).

Also, the better movies are character driven and cause the audience to identify with the characters and sweep them along the dramatic arc. So I would suggest that by the end of the second act the story has now become clear, and the third act is spent on the dramatic resolution. Or the mystery becomes increasingly clear over the final two acts, ending in a grand ah ha moment.

SpIrIt, I thoroughly enjoyed your bullet point list, especially of those things the movie should NOT contain. I agree that dolls should be an element of some sort. They are scary.

I thank you Its so awesome being a part of this, being able to give my opinion to the guy who came up with the 7th Guest... I could only dream of this when I was like 13 years old and playing "The Game"...

Glad to be somewhat of you wingman

[nemo88]

I think the best way to tell the story would be similar to that of the novel. Ego’s perspective works well in an interactive game but will be restricting. My understand is that Ego is caught in a loop and is unaware of this; that he, Tad, has been successful in resisting Stauf but can’t completely free himself. I don’t think this should be made clear until the final confrontation between Stauf and Tad/Ego. Reality gradually dissolving away sounds quite nice to me.

This is how I might organize the story.
-Title sequence and opening credits shows Stauf addressing the invitations but does not show his face. (Murder By Death and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory used this quite effectively, I think.)
-The six adult guests are show in their “current” circumstance, similar to the novel.
-I don’t think Stauf’s story should be told in the beginning but revealed later and only to Temple when he discovers the journal in the laboratory. Similarly, Tad’s entranced should be saved for the right moment or revealed completely through dialogue.
-The guest arrives at the house and from here on out reality begins to slips.
-During the final confrontation time stops and Tad gains consciousness of his situation and sees himself (Ego). The conversation he has with Ego (maybe the symbol of his freedom?) helps him to find the strength/will to finally free himself and even the others ghosts.

Some of the things I’d like to see in the film:

-I’ve always liked how the house is supposed to be alive but it actually appears more or less inanimate. It adds to the question of what is real or merely one of Stauf’s tricks. As mentioned, Rose Red was building itself and changed on its own accord but I would rather that the viewer never to see the house change, with the exception of secret passages. It’s not necessarily a crime but it’s even spookier if that question is never fully answered. Coincidentally, the house in Murder By Death had movable rooms. I know it’s a comedy but the idea alone was neat because of the mystery of it. One thinks, that’s impossible – you can’t build anything mechanical of that size and complexity and not hear the gears moving … But that’s the fun of Stauf’s mansion.
-That foyer is awesome. It’s an icon of my childhood and just a neat architectural creation. Plus, with the banisters been flared in such a way, the house looks likes it opening up its arms to you.
-I really like the idea of the guest rooms representing their desires. I recall reading this in the script. However, there needs to be more windows. :p
-Melodrama. It’s only cheesy when poorly done.
-Robert Hirschboeck. I would be sad to see him out of the picture. But if someone else had to play him I would recommend Timothy Spall. Additionally, Angelina Jolie could play Burdon.

There’s likely more ideas lingering somewhere in my mind but can’t recall them quite yet.

[nsullivan]

I've got a feeling that a movie might divide quite a lot of opinions. It's not really possible to have a movie that sticks closely to the game, as the gamer played it, because it consists of a presence moving around and seeing visions. So there's going to have to be a fair bit of creative licence taken, which always leads to the possibility, already warned against by Spirit, that the movie could become a sort of teenager-slasher flick, for example. Horrors!! So, how does one "break into" the existing game, in order to translate it into a movie, without altering it beyond recognition?

Well, for a skeletal outline, how about something along the lines of the following: we have a "main character" who wanders around a ruined, present-day version of the mansion, and is there to investigate the disappearance of the six guests, x number of years before. He could be a private investigator, or someone who investigates paranormal events, a bit like Carl Denning was. This character makes his way around the mansion, and the story of the what happened on that night of horror is told in flashback format, depending on what he sees. However, whilst the story of the six guests and Stauf's history is being spun, Stauf is not gone. He is still there in the mansion, the mansion may look ruined but it is still alive, and away from the flashbacks, the film becomes a battle between our main character and Stauf: will he go the way of the six guests and be entombed in Stauf's madness, or will he overcome the evil, and lay the old man to rest? Exactly how "the 7th guest" is incorporated, our main character could either be the 7th guest by virtue of his turning up these years later, or similar to the game, he could actually be an older version of Tad, who appears in the flashbacks, and who escaped.

As I say, a very skeletal outline. To my mind, the biggest issue is going to be how to reconcile the original story of The 7th Guest, with the need to present a cohesive and fleshed out storyline that the mainstream public would get and be entertained by. I've never read the novel by Matthew Costello, please note, so maybe that already solved the problem.

Some other stuff should be reasonably obvious – having the house (particularly the iconic foyer) as close as possible to the original, and having Mr Hirschboeck playing Stauf seem like they could easily be included, regardless of the direction the story actually takes. Personally, I actually think that he will run away with the movie as the most memorable character and performance, even if he doesn't appear in it much. As a result, I would cast relative unknowns as the other characters.

Agree with previous comments that things don't necessarily have to be in chronological order, as long as it isn't overdone – nothing's worse than finishing a movie and not having a damned clue what it was about. Note that this could potentially happen with the dolls. I believe in the game, that it was explained that the childrens' souls were trapped in the toys Stauf sold them, when they died. But it was only explained, really rather briefly, in a single conversation between Mrs Knox and Temple, and even then it wasn't really clear what Stauf's interest was in childrens' souls (other than “he's generally evil”). Don't get me wrong, it suited the game just fine, but I don't think it would pass muster in a movie where storylines weigh so much more heavily.

One last point in a, looking back at it, somewhat rambling thread. Exactly how should one define a 7th Guest movie? Horror film? To me, those usually imply the point of the story is to spill as much blood as possible. Chiller? Should the point be to scare the audience, or simply to weave a good story? On this point, I would say that I always think violence is best if it's used sparingly. A great example from the 11th Hour is the earring on the dresser – it looks perfectly ordinary, nothing much has happened just prior to it, but Stauf creates a sudden vision where there is a severed ear attached to it, with the point of trying to horrify Denning, with Stauf taking much pleasure from doing so.

I realise that with that thread, I have probably answered precisely nothing . But there's my thoughts anyway.

[SpIrIt]

I love these ideas, especially the idea of opening with Stauf writing the invitations.

As I mentioned, I think the book by Costello can be a good starting point, but it doesnt lend itself to be a moviescript.

A few things we agree on (imo)

- Dont contact the Heinz company for ketchup (read: fake blood) just jet.
- The house is the main character (of course including foyer), with the addition of our puppetmaster Stauf.
- We'd like to avoid the standard slasher/teenage horror movie.
- The Guests should reappear in the movie.
- It's not likely that big actors will appear in this movie, wich is not a problem... If id see Angelina Jolie... Id see Angelina Jolie, not Martine Burden.
- Effects like the severed ear appearing of the hands pressing against the back of the painting are good scares, dont lose those elements.
- This thing will be awesome, and nothing less.

[SpIrIt]

@donroberto

So how is the movie project coming along? Can you shed more light on anything about this movie?


Im really hoping this movie is going to make it, that would be all the more reason for a sequel or a remake...

PS: Ive just found out that the actress that played Martine Burden (Debra Ritz Mason) died August 9th 2006... Damn shame, she was still young.

R.I.P.

PS2: There was a question elsewhere in the forum about video masters of the 7th guest that should be lost... Cant it be that David Luehmann still has uncompressed video? (ok... its not a master tape but its probably better than the in-game video, no offence to the breakthrough technology you guys used for compression for that time)

PS3: If you haven't seen it, go see "Drag Me To Hell", might be good for ideas/inspiration Awesome movie!

[Henrik Stauf]

Indeed my good men, is this a splendid idea. As a amateur film artist and a huge fan of the series, I would like to help in any way I can. I have read the novel and can assist in any "story" related questions. I understand it has been a while since the start of this post  but I hope it is not too late to contribute.
You can contact me (and/or keep me updated) through my email.

[SpIrIt]

Hello there Rob,

how are things coming along with the movie? In what stage of development is the project at this time?

I really want to know whats happening

Regards, -=SpIrIt=-!

[donroberto]

We are very very close to signing an option agreement with a small production company. This means that even if we sign tomorrow, which is possible, and in a best case scenario, pre-production wouldn't even start for another year.

[SpIrIt]

We are very very close to signing an option agreement with a small production company. This means that even if we sign tomorrow, which is possible, and in a best case scenario, pre-production wouldn't even start for another year.

Thats great news, I will have to be patient but its great to hear that you are very close to signing an agreement.

If this movie is released there will probably be new artwork (DVD cover) to go with it... but can you keep the logo? It looks great and fits the atmosphere of the game and hopefully the movie...

[SpIrIt]

I was just reading the "Stauf Files" document and I had a small idea for the movie or maybe a sequel.

Incorporate the "Wonderworld" factory (the factory in wich the Stauf toys were actually made, page 4/5) in the movie or product. It would be a great setting for some horror and terror