borely rectory trailerIt’s always a joy to stumble upon something a little different on the daily jaunt across the internet and this teaser trailer for a forthcoming animated documentary is on a subject close to my heart.

I was pointed to the work of Ashley Thorpe by Stephen Volk, writer of The Awakening and Ghostwatch, and found this short trailer for his latest work, due out in 2012, on Borley Rectory, commonly referred to as the most haunted house in England. Certainly it has a colourful past with floating nuns, mysterious writing found scrawled on the walls and ghostly carriages thundering across the grounds and with psychic investigator Harry Price’s records of his visits there it has an infamy unparalleled.

Now Thorpe has chosen this house, the incidents and Harry Price himself, as the basis for his next work and reading through the comments of the post I was very pleased to see that I shared a connection with the director, there was a common spark which ignited our interest in the mythology of the place – this book:

and in particular, this page –

Usborne Book of Supernatural
Click for bigness.

This footage was premiered at the Buried Alive Film Festival last November and on the Carrion Films website Thorpe talks about the project,

Borley Rectory is certainly in some ways a deviation from the previous films stylistically and in terms of content. It’s essentially an animated documentary, which I thought might be an interesting form to explore a subject like this. Borley Rectory, whether you believe Price or not regarding the validity of the haunting, was at least a place that attracted a wealth of quite eccentric characters over the years and each of them brought something of their personality to the house and by proxy to its reputation. I was talking to [writer of Ghostwatch and 2011’s The Awakening] Stephen Volk recently and he commented about a haunting reflecting an absence in a person, a potentially fatal flaw in their character projected, and I find this a very interesting perspective…

 There is certainly a fascinating story here, and I’m looking forward to seeing more. Here’s the trailer,

borley rector poster