The Hungry Ghost

2020

The Hungry Ghost (2020) is a filmed performance by Richard Porter recorded in and around a rural farmhouse in northern England. In the film a naked man is pursued across fields and woodlands by an invisible foe, until he finds brief respite in an abandoned barn. The film continues Porter’s interest in queer embodiment, haunting and the spectral, with the film’s premise inspired by the M.R. James’s ghost story ‘O Whistle and I’ll Come To You, My Lad’—specifically its 1968 film adaptation.

The title of the work is inspired by a figure in Buddhist, Taoist, and Chinese/Japanese folklore representing beings trapped in a state of insatiable desire.