Richard Stanley's Imago Mortis Rolls

By Jon Condit
June 6th, 2007

Richard Stanley’s been doing a lot of updating as of late thanks to his newfound love of MySpace and all the space it allows him to write as much as he wants and get immediate reaction to it. Hence we’ve been hearing a lot more about his upcoming projects, including one that's been floating around for a few years now without a real home.

It’s called Imago Mortis (aka Image of Death) and is the next directing gig for Frammenti di scienze inesatte director Stefano Bessoni. Stanley did a re-write on the script, which he described in his blog as "a neo-giallo taking off from 'Four Flies on Grey Velvet' by way of 'Spasmo' and 'DaVinci Code'." The official synopsis has it being about the ritual set about in the 1600’s, long before photography, in which a scientist named Gregory Fumagalli thought you could reproduce the last image a person sees before you killed then by removing their eyes after death. Mortis is set in modern day, someone at a international school of cinema wants to re-invigorate the theoretical science.

Italy’s Medusa Films are co-producing the project with Gaia Film International. Twtich Film found the piece of concept art you see on your right (click to see it bigger) recently, which was done by Bessoni. Check out a recent update on STYD for more from Stanley’s mouth about the project directly. Can’t wait for this one!

- Johnny Butane