Chuck Palahniuk's Incredibly Disturbing "Haunted" Heading to the Big Screen

As much of a cliché as it is to say (or commonly reiterated hipster bullshit – take your pick), I'm a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk. I own and love most of his books, consider Fight Club one of my favorite movies, and am deeply looking forward to the upcoming film adaptations of Invisible Monsters and Survivor. (Sadly, I've been putting off watching Choke, which looks to have watered down my favorite book of Palahniuk's into something not nearly as interesting.)

And yet, I can't muster any real excitement about Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted (which I would argue is his worst book) getting the theatrical treatment. I can definitely say I'm intrigued though, as I'm wondering just how the hell they plan on turning it into a film. The concept behind the book, which is by far its biggest attribute, is that the story at hand is separated by 23 short stories written by the author's featured in the narrative, as well as poems about those writers. While the story itself is fairly weak, following a group of individuals who participate in a secret writer's retreat where they're locked inside an abandoned theatre and are given three months to each write one story, the short stories on their own are up there with Palahniuk's best work.

There's one specific short story though that I'm really not sure if I'm eager to see acted out on film. If you've read the book, you already know what I'm talking about, being that it's what the novel is most noted for. The story is called "Guts," and it features (among other unpleasant acts) a boy sitting on the water intake at the bottom of a swimming pool while masturbating, eventually causing his rectum and lower intestines to prolapse and become tangled in the filter and then having to gnaw through his own innards in order to free himself and avoid drowning. Fun stuff, right? Others thought so too; there were reports of up to 60 people having fainted during readings of the story by Palahniuk on various book tours.

Haunted is set to be written for the screen and directed by relative newcomer Koen Mortier, whose Ex-Drummer premiered to mixed reviews at last year's Toronto Film Festival.