Hexham Heads

Hexham Heads is a medium-length experimental horror film based on a series of paranormal events that took place in the small town of Hexham in Northern England in the early ’70’s. Two brothers accidentally dug up a pair of small stone heads. After bringing these eerie objects into their home, the family household was terrorized by strange occurrences. It appeared that these little heads were cursed. The presence of the heads haunted the family through moving household objects, producing awful sounds and manifesting monstrous presences, until the family banished the heads from their home.

The film aims to loosely reconstruct these unexplained events. The story will be retold not to explain what has occurred, but to reflect on how family photographs can remain haunted, even if the curse has been lifted. The film examines the narrative and aesthetic conventions of folk tales and raises questions about the influence of physical matter on personal and familial memory. A curse as a domestic or class trauma, not strictly in the metaphorical sense but as a material presence within a family.

The film is a collaboration between Chloë Delanghe and filmmaker Mattijs Driesen the work will be constructed as a montage of photographs: a photo-novella.