Nakata directs Stone

Earlier this decade, director Hideo Nakata had a lot of things going for him. The American remake of his Japanese horror flick THE RING was a huge hit and launched a new sub-genre in Hollywood. A number of his films were tabbed for remakes and some made it through development (DARK WATER) and some didn’t (CHAOS). But the J-horror genre started to play itself out and by the time Nakata made his English-language debut on THE RING 2, the movie was widely panned and Nakata’s buzz stateside had worn itself out.

Four years after THE RING 2 though Nakata has signed on to direct his second US film, VOICE FROM THE STONE. Based on the Italian novel of the same name about a young boy dealing with the loss of his mother. The boy’s female psychologist begins to realize the mother’s ghost is trying to take possession of her body to be reunited with her son. The script was written by Mark Wheaton, a former onliner like myself who used to write under the alias Smilin’ Jack Ruby, who based the story on the novel “La Voce Della Pietra” by Silvio Raffo.