The Strange Movie H.R. Giger Spent Decades Trying To Make

H. R. Giger’s dream of making a "unique love story" based on his extremely visual ideas, a movie entitled The Mystery of San Gottardo, sadly wasn’t realized before his untimely death, and fans of Giger's work are left wondering what could have been...

San Gottardo is an "unique love story", a surreal exercise in human form and its deconstruction, and a waking nightmare all wrapped up in a package that looks like it was sent straight from Silent Hill.

In fact, some creatures from Silent Hill were definitely inspired by Giger’s San Gottardo project, does this lovely creature look familiar?:

Giger's Mystery movie was based on an early sketch he drew in 1963, and even though he started working on the storyline in the 70s, and had written the entire screenplay, San Gottardo proved to be far too strange for Hollywood studios to produce:

"It is about a man and his love for a freak of nature, Armbeinda, which is really a sentient limb combining an arm and a leg. It is the further development of a recurring image in my work over the last 30 years."

The concept stems from a 1963 creation called "The Beggar," Giger's very first sketch, featuring a leg and an arm holding a hat. Giger has filled several sketchbooks with the stories of these "reduced" beings.

The story concerns a race of biomechanoids created by a military organization. The premise: your arms and legs are slaves that do your bidding, but what if they have a mind of their own and were set free? Ink drawings depict the disembodied parts attacking their creator (Giger's self-portrait) in the San Gottardo border tunnel which links Switzerland and Italy. To insure that his vision remains intact, Giger hopes to retain creative control as a producer on the film... and not be forced to rely on CGI.

-Via io9