Written and directed by screenwriter and producer Ali Cook, The Pearl Comb is a 20-minute short period horror film. Set in Cornwall, it follows a couple that encounters a mermaid, whose comb gives them the means to heal people suffering from consumption.
Voice Magazine sat down with Cook for a discussion surrounding his inspirations for the film, the challenges he faced as a debut director, and the historical basis for the movie.
So, the film, The Pearl Comb. Could you tell me what the inspiration was for the film?
Yeah, there's two inspirations. Firstly, I was on holiday in Cornwall with my daughters, and I heard about the old legends about mermaids in Cornwall – the traditional legends where mermaids weren't Disney princesses; they were brutal killers. So I thought that was interesting. And then there's the true story about the Edinburgh Seven, who were the first seven women to qualify as doctors in the UK. In the 1800s, the local townspeople threw mud at them, and the medical profession tried their hardest to stop them from practising medicine.
So fascinating, the issue behind it. And then what was it like? You were setting it in Victorian times and in the West Country as well, working in that style, and the aesthetic of it.
Whenever you do a period drama, it's an opportunity for the production designer to really show off. The downside is the costs involved, because everything has to be perfectly period, and it just ratchets up your costs. But firstly, we went to a very remote area, which was like a private holiday cottage in the middle of nowhere, which made our life a bit easier. We had a brilliant production designer called Isabel Pirillo and she pulled in a lot of favours with the prop houses to get all of the props. And then we had a brilliant costume designer called Connie Woods, who works a lot with Angels, and that's where we got all the Victorian costumes from.
Is that some kind of design company or fashion thing?
Angels are based in London and they've been going, I think, 100 years. They've been supplying costumes for theatre all the way through to fancy dress for all of that time. In North London, they have a warehouse just full of costumes, and you can get anything from a pirate all the way to a policeman to literally anything you want off a rack in every size.
The Pearl Comb features plenty of Victorian costumes
(Credit: Stigma Films)
So this film contains several violent, and graphic scenes of the mermaid eating people alive. Which scene was the most challenging to film?
Well, interestingly, when you film you might say the horror element, of course, that's all faked, and it uses a lot of cutaways and implication. So in a weird way, they're actually quite easy to do, because someone goes in as though they're going to bite the throat and, just as they go in, you cut to the person reacting. So those are actually fairly easy. The hard ones are the things you would never think.
For me, the hardest scenes are always the actual dialogue scenes between the two actors, because you've got to get the tone and the performances right. And then after that, on a technical level, it was the scene in the boat where they're on the ocean, and he meets the mermaid when she shoots out the water. So that was actually shot in a studio, and all of the water is digital effects, so that was very tough.
The Pearl Comb is your directorial debut. What was it like being in the director's chair, having started as a writer and producer, and how do you prepare for the challenges the role would bring?
Well, that's a good question. I think it's a romantic idea to be a director, but I don't think people really understand what it is. I would say it's 90% people skills, and then 10% knowing exactly what you're going to go after, and just making a decision very quickly and then going with it.
So you're responsible for the overall voice of the whole project. And you have to have that very clearly in your mind, because every 10 seconds, people will ask you a question about something, and it will range from "what colour back do you want on this iPhone?" all the way through to "shall we cut this scene?" And you've just got to have an intuition. You have a picture in your head of how it should look, and the best thing to do is to just stick to that vision. The more clarity you can give everyone, ultimately, the easier it gets.
So which works or folklore, myths and legends inspired this film? You talked about the legends of the mermaids and the sirens. Were there any other influences from other media or other folklore from around the world, or from other eras?
So one of the other legends is that in England, before doctors, we used to have what are called "cunning men" who were local men and women in the towns and villages who would heal people a little bit like a medieval GP.
Like a medicine man or medicine woman or herbalist?
Yeah, like a medicine man or a herbalist or even a midwife as well. They were all kind of lumped together. And you get this in most cultures, but in Britain, they were called cunning men or cunning folk. In Cornwall, there was a family called the Pella family, and they were famous for healing people. And they claimed that the reason they could heal people was that hundreds of years ago, they met a mermaid, and this mermaid gave them the power to heal. So that that's where part of that legend comes from. And then I wanted to make the mermaid as evil as possible and add in the Edinburgh Seven idea.
You don't really see many evil mermaids in popular culture, but I remember it brings to mind this show on the Sci Fi Channel called Siren. I haven't watched it, but I have read a fair bit about it. It’s like these creatures and stuff, and her interaction with humans, and it seems a bit horror in aspects, and also The Shape of Water where that woman falls in love with the fish man too.
That's right. I watched Siren on YouTube because I didn't really watch it for the storylines or anything. I just watched it to see how they'd done their visual effects. Because it's a huge challenge to do a to do a mermaid on film. I wanted to see how they'd gone about it, and also it's very important to not do what someone else has done.
So put your own twist on it.
Exactly. Yeah, and I think that's important with everything. I remember reading years ago, an artist – it could have been Picasso – he said: "Every artist paints a rose, but I want to see how they painted a rose". And that's really the essence of everything. You know, everyone's going to paint a rose, but how do they do it? That's really the secret to it all.
Clara Paget plays the mermaid in The Pearl Comb
(Credit: Stigma Films)
I think that's interesting. And as mentioned before, you’re also a screenwriter and producer. According to your website, you've got a film called The Grimoire in development. Can you talk to a bit more about its premise and what stage you are at in the development process?
Yeah, well, I can't say too much about the project at the moment, because it's right in the early doors, but at the moment, it's with a producer, and we're going out to cast leads. And that one of the big challenges for films is a) trying to land your lead cast, then b) trying to figure out when they can do it. That's quite a common place for a lot of films to be. So that's where it is at the moment.
Can you tell us which genre it is?
Well, it's also a folk horror. But instead of being set in the past, it's set now.
An interesting change of eras. And what do you hope to see your career like? Do you think you'll go into making more feature-length films, or maybe go to an independent studio or a mini major?
Well, you know, any form of entertainment, we all try to have a career path. But the hardest thing about entertainment is there is no career path. You could be the star of a show one day and then that show finishes. Boom, you don't get another acting role for years. Or you could write a hit movie and then you don't hear from anyone for years. Or you could write a series and it just goes and goes. You don't really know. I think that the very few people who have the ability to make those choices are already mega-stars, you know? So I would say I intend to just keep working and getting better.
Thank you, Ali Cook! The Pearl Comb is currently screening on the film festival circuit.
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