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A few days back, I posted a story about the upcoming second collaboration between Guillermo Del Toro and Juan Antonio Bayona (the first being the very disturbing and surreal film The Orphanage). The film is called Hater and it’s an adaptation of a David Moody novel.

The guys over at Twitch got a chance to sit down with Bayona recently, and the filmmaker had some interesting things to say about his upcoming project. Here are some highlights.

When asked to describe the story of Hater, Bayona summed it up as follows:

“Hater is about a sudden epidemic of hate that comes from nowhere and happens to everybody. It doesn’t care about race, sex or heritage. The media tells the story in a way that one has to wonder if everything is really happening, or maybe if it’s all result of collective hysteria.  The uncertainty is frightening: nobody knows who will survive at the end of the day or who will die. What I really liked about the story was that it deals with the real world we are living. It asks if we want to live in a world where we are controlled from above, through fear. Hater is an answer to that fear: it shows what can happen when people react to it with uncontrollable fury. That’s an excellent start for a movie.”

He also offered up this thoughtful answer when asked to describe how Hater would compare to his previous film, The Orphanage:

“When a director gives himself to the story, he ends up soaking the movie with his own style. Hater is a horror tale, but it’s also a very emotional story. It will be much more violent than The Orphanage, because it deals with hate as the main emotion. But it also talks about forgiveness, sacrifice and even love.“

Point your browser in the direction of Twitch to read more about how the relationship between Bayona and Del Toro works.

I have to say that this film is rapidly moving up my list of most anticipated titles-which is pretty impressive since they haven’t started shooting, the book isn’t out yet, and we haven’t even seen a piece of production art. The collaboration between Del Toro and Bayona, coupled with their previous work, and the stuff that’s being said about this film in the early stages, is enough to have piqued my interest. And hey, at least it’s not a remake, right?

A few days back, I posted a piece talking about just how insanely busy Guillermo Del Toro is (check it out here. The director’s slate is so full of projects he could be literally locked up til 2017. Apparently, though, Del Toro found some wiggle room (maybe he cut out a few scheduled bathroom breaks or something) because Variety is reporting that he’s utilized the power of his first-look deal at Universal to nab the rights to David Moody’s novel Hater.

Guillermo’s far too busy to direct the adaptation, so he’s passed on that privilege to Antonio Bayona, who directed the 2007 film The Orphanage (which Del Toro also produced). This good news for people who love artsy horror films filled with weird, surreal images and disturbing violence.

The novel, which is being adapted by screenwriter Glen Mazzara, is slated for hardcover release in February of 2009. The plot focuses on one man’s quest to find his place in a world gone mad-a world where something has caused people to become remorseless killers who will attack and everyone around them with lethal force. This marks a new direction for the author (who’d previously written the Autumn series of living dead novels) and that Del Toro is already interested bodes well for the quality of the book.

Hater will be Bayona’s first English language film.