Mass scale global hysteria is not specifically what Douglas Buck is most interested in capturing – Imago offers a more myopic apocalypse through how things play out in a remote Catholic boarding school in the jungle. The school is one of the last bastions unaffected by the virus, but when it hits, the virus seems strangely selective in its effects. The teachers don’t respond well to the infection to say the least, while the young students, rather than dropping like flies, seem to be undergoing some kind of bizarre transformation.
That’s the bare bones I could get out of Douglas Buck and Fabrice Lambot on the film; it’s definitely an intriguing premise. My first thought was that it must be heavily influenced by Lord of the Flies. When asked about what he was drawing from in creating such a concept, Buck was quick to point out even though this idea has been germinating in his mind for close to a decade, The Broken Imago could end up existing in a parallel thematic realm to Larry Fessenden’s works like Wendigo and The Last Winter. More specifically, both Buck and Lambot told me that The Broken Imago drew a good bit of inspiration from the 1976 Spanish film Quién puede matar a un niño (a.k.a. Who Can Kill a Child, a.k.a. Island of the Damned).
Douglas Buck met Fabrice Lambot back when Lambot had a sci-fi collector’s store in Paris. The store is sadly gone now, but the friendship has persisted, leading several years down the road to the pair of them collaborating to bring Buck’s long-time dream project to life.
They’ve just finished shooting the teaser trailer for The Broken Imago in Argentina, with Montreal’s Karim Hussain doing the cinematography. As you can see from the images here, it looks pretty cool. Composer David Kristian, whom both Hussain and Buck have worked with extensively in the past, is on board to do the musical score for The Broken Imago. Douglas’s long-time producer Rita Romagnino was on board for the teaser trailer shoot as well, making for a very concentrated Montreal presence on the project.
Horror films with some kind of social or political angle are Douglas Buck’s preferred corner of the genre. His new film draws from the George Romero style of observing the fall of man and how desperate circumstances turn us all against one another. But it’s not just the inherent hostility of man bringing mass ruin – it’s coupled with the revolt of the earth. As Buck said, “The story has elements of the environment treating man like the body treats cancer. It emits antibiotics or destructive antidotes to fight off and remove these kinds of things.”
Thematically, the term “Imago” is an old Latin term that has multiple meanings, anything from insect metamorphosis to how children create idealized versions of their parents in their minds. Buck didn’t specify which meaning is closest to the heart of the story in his film, but the title obviously alludes to a break in such a phenomenon and what happens as a result.
Could that be the coining of a new genre right there? “Virus-Violence”? We’ll see. Fabrice echoed Doug’s sentiments, saying we’re in for something extremely dark, disturbing, creepy, and shocking.
At Dread Central, we’ll be waiting with bated breath to get a glimpse of this teaser trailer … that is, unless there’s an apocalyptic virus outbreak between now and then. If that’s the case, we’ll hopefully see any surviving readers of this article at The Broken Imago premiere in your hazard suits and gas masks!