Masih ingat tren ‘Momo Challenge’? Tahun lalu, karakter perempuan bermata besar dan berwajah panjang itu berhasil bikin geger orang tua di seluruh dunia. Momo jadi meme pertama yang ditakuti, konon karena bisa memengaruhi anak-anak mereka untuk bunuh diri. Sempat hilang, Momo kembali sekarang, tidak di internet, melainkan untuk jadi tokoh utama film horor.
Momo sebenarnya adalah patung buatan Aiso, perusahaan penghasil efek visual di Jepang. Nama aslinya pun bukan Momo, melainkan Mother Bird. Patung seram ini lalu membuat sensasi di internet dengan Momo Challenge. Tantangannya dimulai ketika ada akun WhatsApp menyeramkan yang mengaku sebagai Momo. Dia menyebarkan pesan berisi ajakan melakukan tindakan berbahaya dan bunuh diri. Ternyata, akunnya palsu.
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Namun, kita tak bisa memungkiri hoaks itu bikin Momo semakin terkenal. Bersama Taka Ichise, Vertigo Entertainment dikabarkan sedang menggarap film Momo. Belum banyak yang bisa diketahui dari film ini, selain pasti akan sangat menakutkan mengingat Ichise dan Vertigo Entertainment pernah menelurkan film horor macam The Ring, The Grudge, It, dan It: Chapter 2.
Menurut Deadline yang pertama kali mengumumkan rencana pembuatan film Momo, filmnya berpotensi menyinggung popularitas patung Momo di internet dan asal-usulnya yang sama-sama menyeramkan. “Patung Aiso terinspirasi oleh cerita rakyat Jepang tentang Ubume, hantu berbentuk burung yang suka mengambil anak-anak,” tulis Deadline.
Okay, so you know Momo? Momo! The Grudge-looking meme nightmare with the big eyes and the long face and the hair like Samara from The Ring? The Momo who went viral last year terrifying gullible internet parents and elderly journalists across the world with the promise that she would lure their children to their deaths? Yes, that Momo. Well, she’s back, and she’s getting her own film.
After originally starting life as a sculpture from Aiso, a Japanese special effects company — Momo’s real name is Mother Bird, actually — Momo became a veritable viral sensation in the form of the Momo Challenge. The challenge involved sinister WhatsApp accounts attributed to Momo, so the internet myth went, who encouraged children to perform violent and harmful acts, culminating in murder and suicide. Obviously, like most things on the internet, it wasn’t true.
But the odd hoax did at least take Momo’s fame to new heights. A currently untitled Momo movie is being developed by Vertigo Entertainment, in collaboration with Taka Ichise. Not much is known about the film itself yet, but given that these are the same developers who terrified the world with both The Ring and The Grudge, and more recently, It and the upcoming It: Chapter 2, we know that it will at least be scary.
According to Deadline, who first reported the story, Momo’s movie could potentially tackle both the internet aspect of the sculpture’s popularity, and its equally creepy origins. “Aiso’s sculpture was rooted in the legend of Ubume, a venomous, child-snatching bird of Japanese folklore,” they report. Sounds suitably petrifying, thanks.
This article originally appeared on VICE UK.
