“What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not a such a terrible thing to be." - Ocean Vuong, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous.
“What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not a such a terrible thing to be." - Ocean Vuong, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous.
Renowned photographer Emma returns to Devonport, Aotearoa, after the vicious murder of her uncle Gregory. The household maid, Paula, confides her theory that a bird monster “Broken Beak” killed him. As more family winds up dead, Emma begins to see haunting visions of the monster Broken Beak, who beckons her to fulfill a destiny hitherto unknown to herself.
With a mix of suspense, horror, and cultural commentary, Ogress is a haunting and thought-provoking film that explores the consequences of unchecked greed and the power of the natural world to seek justice.
Early concept storyboards
Synopsis
Ogress is a murder mystery eco-horror film. It tells the story of Emma, a young photographer who has become famous in New York City for photographing women as birds. At the start of the film, her adoptive uncle Gregory is murdered, which prompts Emma and her affluent American girlfriend to return to Devonport, Auckland, to collect her inheritance. There they meet Paula, the lifelong household maid who raised Emma as a girl.
Paula confides her theory that the curse of the Broken Beak, killed Gregory, as Gregory had just completed a deal that would place a resort and golf course on protected land. Emma brushes this aside as fantasy but soon more members of her adoptive family wind up dead in mysterious ways. Through this, Emma begins to have haunting visions of and interactions with the mythical creature of Broken Beak the Birdwoman, who beckons Emma to fulfill an ultimate destiny. As the police start closing in on her as a suspect, Emma, with deteriorating sanity, searches for the true killer, all the while starting to believe she could herself be the monster.
DETAILS
Name: Ogress
Type: Narrative, Feature
Production Company: Left Alive Limited (NZ) & Without A Name LLC (US)
Anticipated Runtime: 105 minutes
Genre: Murder-Mystery, Horror, Thriller
Writer & Director: Christian Carroll
MEET THE CAST
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Briar Rose
“Emma”
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Lydia Peckham
“Jackie”
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Katlyn Wong
“Paula”
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Joel Tobeck
“Peter Finch”
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Rob Kipa-Williams
“Hemi”
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Dayna Grant
“Broken Beak”
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Jonny Brugh
“Robert Shaughnessy”
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Bala Murali Shingade
“Officer Hardie”
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William Zhang
“Officer Hart”
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Bruce Hopkins
“Gregory”
Director’s Statement
Ever since reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk, I have been interested in creating a film that seamlessly blends a philosophical idea with a narrative structure. As such, when the opportunity arose that Christie and I would be able to use the Devonport Power Station as a primary shoot location for a feature film, I began thinking about how I might try and make a narrative feature like this.
The idea came to me to write an ecological horror film in the guise of a murder mystery - the true heart of the film being about an Indigenous woman’s metamorphosis into a mythical monster that is a protector of natural resources. The film would be a synthesis of popcorn horror entertainment laced with a thought-provoking ecological fable.
I, like many of us, struggle with the fact that we are confronting planetary ecological collapse that has primarily been brought about by Western imperialistic thought and systemic capitalistic greed. This destruction has coincided with the erasure of indigenous ways that were more in harmony with the natural world and planet. As an Indigenous filmmaker (I am part Mississippi Choctaw and a member of the Choctaw Nation), and as the film would be set in New Zealand, I wanted the lead character to be indigenous.
I have always had an affinity for the horror genre and its ability to weave in piercing social commentary in pulpy ways. As I began thinking about Ogress, the original 1992 Candyman film by Bernard Rose resonated with me. Rose used a Boogeyman-type character in that film to capture a deeper truth about the horrors and history of racism in a Chicago slum. Thus, I began thinking about a story that might create a natural Boogeyman-type character.
Ogress opens with the following quote:
“What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal: both shelter and warning at once.”
- Ocean Vuong, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous
Telling a story in which the lead character eventually becomes the mythical monster herself communicates the message that we need these old monsters of folk stories and mythology, these ogres, to keep mankind in awe of the natural world and respect Mother Nature.
- Christian Carroll
CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROJECT
Post-production
Post-production
Interested in being a part of Ogress?
If you are interested in learning more about the project, please get in touch; we would love to hear from you!