I’ve always steered towards dark stories with everything I write, and with Halloween coming up I wanted to stretch my writing muscles with a small short script that could potentially be used in the weeks to come, merely as writing practice or even filmmaking practice – maybe an online short or something to create in my spare time. Since moving into my accommodation for third year I’ve had a fascination for the stained window in my bedroom that my computer desk sits against, it continuously reminds me specifically of the fog the Septapods from Denis Villenueve’s Arrival (2016, Villenueve) live within, and how their presence was hidden within the fog up until they came close to the glass where Amy Adams’ character could interact with them.
(Fig. 1 – My Stained Bedroom Window) 
(Fig. 2 – the Septapod Fog from ‘Arrival’)
The stained glass makes only light shapes from the main road outside visible, and at night all I can see is the illumination from headlights and streetlamps which let me know that things are out there. Often, whilst doing work at my desk I’ve imagined things coming into view from across the glass, sneaking up on me or spying on me whilst my attention has been on other things. It’s a small idea I’ve had in my head for a little while now and I thought that maybe it would be a good small topic to explore in a short script. I started to look into images online or from other horror films that I could visualise when writing, and one of the first examples I could think of was from the god-awful Poltergeist (2015, Kenan) remake, and how one of the few good things the remake handled was the visualisation of the spirits inhabiting the television which contact young Madison Bowen. The way the film handled it was to portray the spirits as human individuals, with their hands reaching out to the glass of the television screen amidst the static emanating from it.
(Fig. 3 – The Spirits within ‘Poltergeist’)
It’s a powerful image and one that I wanted to write about after visualising the same events against the stained windows. Before beginning to write I knew I wanted a simplistic story with an open-end, as I personally believe horror to be scary when the creature or antagonist is kept mysterious, I also knew I wanted to keep the hand as the horrific presence, so I made my housemate stand outside my bedroom window and press his hand up against the glass in order to visualise what was going on in my head and to see if it would work. It ended up looking very cool visually, now all I needed to do was to craft a short story which would utilise such a feature…
(Fig. 4 – Testing the visuals of the hand on the window)
Bibliography:
Kenan, G. (dir.) (2015) Poltergeist [DVD]. 20th Century Fox: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Villenueve, D. (dir.) (2016) Arrival [DVD]. Paramount Pictures.
