Los Angeles-based VIZ Productions is developing a feature film adaptation of The Street of Fruiting Bodies by famed Japanese author Sayuri Ueda. The short horror story appeared in the Phantasm Japan anthology collection published by VIZ Media’s Haikasoru imprint last year. The company has retained screenwriter Sam Hamm, best known for his work on Tim Burton’s Batman, for the project.
The Street of Fruiting Bodies tells of the sudden spread of a mysterious and lethal species of hallucinogenic mushroom. While the infestation is deadly, it also offers those infected visions of deceased loved ones, hinting at the reality of an afterlife — or at least a new kind of existence beyond human comprehension.
“Ueda creates a world in which the most profound human emotions – love, grief, longing, and hope – can lead to one’s salvation or one’s undoing, and the true horror is that it may be impossible to tell the difference,” says Hamm, who also adapted short fiction for Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. “The Street of Fruiting Bodies is not only disturbing, it is moving.”
