Whispers in the Dark

Whispers in the Dark (Daxian: 墙耳语) is a 2002 Daxian film written and directed by horror film director Konshu Meng and starring Glup Shito and Mei Lon. Set in the depths of south Xisheng, the movie revolves around a mysterious pyramid in the jungle and the many mysterious disappearances in its vicinity. After his wife disappears, the protagonist ventures into the structure to find her.

Plot
A couple of Daxian tourists, Gong and his wife Shumei are on vacation in the jungles of southern Xisheng with a larger tour group. Setting out early on their second day, the tour group travels in two minibuses to a well known temple ruin fifteen miles away from the small village that is hosting them. On the way there, Gong and his wife converse with another tourist, a foreign man named Timon. Timon tells them he overheard that three tourists vanished in the jungle only a few weeks prior. Gong comments that they were probably drunk and got lost. The visit to the ruins is uneventful but as the group starts loading into the buses, they realize one of them has a flat tire. Gong tells his wife to go on ahead on the other bus, he stays to help change the flat tire. Finishing up just as the sun begins to set, the second bus gets on the way. But just after two miles from the ruins they discover the other bus lying on its side by the road, with no trace of the other passengers. Some broken plants seem to point north of the road as the direction everyone went.

Gong and his group fan around the area, calling out for the others and trying to peer into the bush with flashlights. Suddenly they begin to hear whispers around them, Gong hears the voice of his wife coming from the darkness beyond the road, calling his name. After a discussion two members of the group decide to drive back to the village for help while the rest decide to venture into the jungle and follow the voices. Timon pulls out a map of the area, noting that according to it there are no landmarks ahead and they could get lost very easily. Hearing his name whispered again, or perhaps only the rustling of leaves, Gong leads them into the thick vegetation. As they advance, the group begins to hear the sound of slithering and branches creaking around them. Timon dismisses it as normal jungle sounds. Suddenly a man named Chu is seized by some sort of enormous barbed vine which lifts him off his feet and drags him away into the darkness before anyone can help him. The group runs away, still following the voices in the dark until finally they stumble into a large clearing. At the center stands a large stepped pyramid of black stone.

As they get closer they can hear the whispers more clearly and coming directly from the pyramid. As they investigate they find a hole on one of the sides of the structure, large enough to walk through. As they descend into the pyramid, they find themselves in a maze of corridors covered in vines and vegetation. Two of the group hear relatives talking to them and wander into the dark after them; they are not seen again. Timon finds a sentence smeared with blood on a wall, it reads: 'We cannot leave, its eating them'. As the group moves deeper in, their sanity begins to fray, they decide to stop and rest for a while in an empty room. When Gong wakes, Timon is gone and one of his companions is dead, a thick vine having wormed itself into his throat and choked him. Only he and two others remain alive, they pray together before determining to push on rather than await death in the room.

The three find a large staircase that seems to go down into the bowels of the pyramid, yet they cannot see the bottom. As they descend, the voices seem to come from the spaces between the bricks that make up the walls. On close inspection they see thick green vines behind the brick, with tiny little flowers that seem to move like mouths; it is these that seem to talk to them in their loved ones's voices. After what feels like an eternity of walking down, they finally reach the bottom and find a vast and cavernous chamber with a large barren tree in the center. All around the cavern there are half eaten or decomposing human bodies hanging from vines. The tree stirs and somehow, speaks, it has been waiting for them to come. Barbed vines grab at them, engulf them and the tree begins to crack open as something dark crawls out.

Back at the road it is day again, the two men who went to the village have returned with some volunteers to help look. They can hear Gong's voice calling out to them, they decide to go into the jungle.

Conception
Director Konshu Meng has said in interviews that he got the idea for the movie while vacationing at the pyramids of Ixa'Taka. He remembered the abandoned structures to be very eerie, quiet and claustrophobic. He scrapped initial plans to make humans be the main foes of the movie, instead expanding on the idea of a creature capable of manipulating the ever present jungle greenery, basically turning something as inescapable as the enviroment around oneself into a terrifying and pervasive foe that cannot be fought off.

Filming
The movie was actually filmed inside a site in Varshan known as Comala as it was cheaper than sites in Daxian territory and had a standalone pyramidal structure as Meng wanted. As relations with Varshan were in much better terms at the time the production had no obstruction from local officials. It also helped that Gongon Studios secured the transfer of two Daxian death row prisoners to be 'used' by the Varshani for their religious purposes.

Theatrical release
The theatrical release of the film took place on September 12th 2002 in Daxia in 300 locations, followed by release on Canpei and Huoxia on September 15th. The movie had modest success at the box office and was well received by the public given that the horror film genre was still in its relative infancy in the Daxian movie industry.