It turns out we weren't the only ones a bit obsessed with the creepy video of the final known moments of the late Elisa Lam. Drive helmer Nicolas Winding Refn is so fascinated by the freaky viral video that he has made the unexpected move to petition for the director's chair on the in-the-works horror movie it inspired.
Deadline reports Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn is in negotiations with Sony Pictures to direct The Bringing, a horror-thriller loosely based on the notorious Elisa Lam video. Refn is best known for films he wrote and directed, ranging from the outlandish criminal biopic Bronson, to the brutal Ryan Gosling vehicle Drive and his polarizing follow-up, the gruesome crime-thriller Only God Forgives. With The Bringing, he'd be breaking from tradition of only helming movies he also had a hand in writing.
The Bringing first made waves as a spec script earlier this year. At that time, its writers, Brandon and Phillip Murphy, were the center of a frenzy of studio attention, with multiple producers vying for the promising project. Other than the teaser that its premise is based on the mystery of Elisa Lam's final day, little is known about the contents of The Bringing.
Reportedly, Refn is a big fan of horror, which should come as no surprise to those who have seen his blood-drenched takes on drama. It's said he has been on the hunt for a horror film that appealed to him, and it seems either the Elisa Lam story or The Bringing's script caught his eye. As far as the former goes, it's easy to see why.
Revisit the disturbing images of the video that has ranked up more than 5 million views since it first made its way online:
Before she became the subject of intense internet speculation, Elisa Lam was a Canadian college student. But her story is as tragic as it is inexplicable. She went missing in January of 2013, and was later found in the rooftop water tanks of The Cecile Hotel, a Los Angeles spot with a spotted history that included a spade of suicides and a pair of serial killers. The video above surfaced later, giving some insight into Elisa Lam's final days. But the details of the silent security footage became a heated topic of debate.
Some insisted Lam's bizarre behavior showed signs of a mental disorder, or perhaps drug or alcohol abuse (the coroner's report struck the possibility of the latter). Others have suggested that something supernatural and sinister is going on here, citing the appearance of Lam hiding from somebody in the hallway, what looks like her talking to someone unseen, and the strange contortions of her hands as she stands outside the elevator.
While we really have no way of knowing what happened to Elisa Lam between this video and when her corpse was found in the run-down hotel's water tanks, her story--or at least her possible story--has inspired countless webcrawlers to weigh in. With Nicolas Winding Refn fighting to join in the conversation, this story is sure to get new life, and potentially a deeply disturbing movie adaptation.
