The Staple Gun

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If you didn’t know, I like props. I used to make them professionally and I’ve spent most of my life working on them. I tend to focus on them more than most when I’m watching anything and will zero in on specific ones sometimes. I like them enough that I did a post a couple of months ago, where I focused on the suitcase in Sisyphus the Myth. I hadn’t intended this to be a recurring series, but when the opportunity presents itself it makes sense to grab it. And when I saw this specific prop used in three separate dramas that I was watching at around the same time, I knew I had to talk about it.

Today, we are highlighting the Kim Won Hae of the 2021 kdrama season: The Staple Gun.

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For some reason, The Staple Gun was THE prop of the spring. I’ve never seen one used in so many dramas at one time, let alone do I even remember it being used in another drama. Like maybe in a construction scene, yes, or a slasher movie - but those don’t count. While the dramas they were used in were more in the darker genres, the use of it was slightly odd. It was never used properly in any of these dramas, too. So for this post we won’t be singing the praises of The Staple Gun much like we did with The Suitcase. Do I love it in real life? Yes. It made a lot of my work life so much easier, but we aren’t here to talk about tools being used as tools. We are here to talk about tools being used as props in weird ways. And then me rating those weird ways.

SELL YOUR HAUNTED HOUSE

I first saw The Staple Gun being used in the teasers for Sell Your Haunted House. And the reason I noticed it was because of the way that the character used it…and how odd that was.

Here’s the insider scoop on how to operate the gun: you can’t just press the trigger and expect the gun to do anything. It just won’t. You have to depress the nozzle of the gun on something (like wood) before the gun will fire (you’ll want to remember this later). So right off the bat, I was judging it hard. I think I even commented on Twitter about it. But we can’t be too harsh on The Staple Gun in Sell Your Haunted House. It is used supernaturally and gets some points for that. During the show it fires out some sort of force field to trap the spirits during the exorcism, so in reality it’s not firing nail or staples so it’s not really doing anything wrong.

They never explain why or how it does this thing in the drama, though. Or even why it was chosen to do the task. I’m assuming it has something to do with her being in real estate so people won’t question her bringing it into a house, but it could have been something else. Like an artifact or something like that, it didn’t need to be a real life item. I do give it bonus points for being battery-operated.

Rating: 4/5 wine glasses for the creativity of the prop, and the way it is used was kind of fun when you see it in action.

DARK HOLE

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Like a week after I saw it being used in Sell Your Haunted House, I saw The Staple Gun used again in Dark Hole. This time it was more hefty and pneumatic and was being used to stop the zombie creatures. It’s biggest flaw, that it was the wrong weapon for the job. For the most part, it was just something extra for the character to lug around and had no real purpose. Again, it won’t fire unless depressing on something (which it doesn’t) and while they did pretend that it was hooked up to something for the pneumatics to work, it wouldn’t have lasted that long without having to cycle back with air, and wouldn’t have much pressure behind it anyways. It was more of a nuisance than anything.

2/5 wine glasses. Maybe if all else failed whacking it in the face of the monster would actually do some sort of damage.

TAXI DRIVER

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I wasn’t expecting to see The Staple Gun also being used in Taxi Driver. I really wasn’t. It came out of left field and was towards the end of the series. It was the reason I decided this post needed to be, because three dramas back-to-back was just three dramas too many. Again, the safety prevented everything that was being shown, however out of all the uses this one was the most realistic. It was in a shop, and (as you can see in the photo) hooked up to the air supply. Could it fire without being depressed? Again, no. Now, I haven’t mentioned this until this point, but it is possible to rig it to do that (which OSHA definitely does not approve of), but it’s really a waste of time for some random mechanic to do in the first place and it doesn’t really look like that’s the case since we do get some shots of the nose. It’s just out of all the other scenarios, this was the only time that I could actually seethat the safety had been taken off being true, though.

Rating: 3.5/5 wine glasses. A solid use and the most accurate, albeit a tad boring.

EXTRA CREDIT: THE RED SHOES (2005 MOVIE)

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Weeks - nay months later - I was hanging out and decided that I wanted to throw on a horror movie. I chose The Red Shoes because it’s been on my list for a while and it had premiered that week (if you haven’t caught on by all of my social media posts I’m doing a Korean Summer Horror thing), and who was to appear but our old trusty The Staple Gun. I won’t tell you how The Staple Gun is used, or in what part, but it was there in all its glory.

Rating: 5/5 wine glasses. Unexpected, a shocker. Old Trusty’s finest performance.

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Korean Egg Ghost

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I finished Sell Your Haunted House a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed the drama. I went to do some research on the egg ghost that was used in the drama because I knew there was a good chance that it wasn’t just made up for the show. I found some information on it that I thought would be insightful and wanted to compare it a bit with how the egg ghost in lore was used in comparison to the depiction in the drama. While I won’t be doing a full review in this post, I will be comparing some parts of the drama that will verge or dive deep into spoiler territory, so this is your warning.

Egg ghosts (dalgyal gwishin/달걀귀신) get their name from their appearance as it resembles an egg and are primarily found in forests. The legend states that once someone sees an egg ghost, they will die. While in the drama the ghost is manifested in the characters being possessed by the ghost, largely still looking like the human it is inhabiting, some variations of it’s description is described differently. In some legends they don’t have a nose and mouth or other facial features like depicted, but also don’t have limbs. Other times it resembles a hunchback, as if it’s carrying a heavy load. However most images of them do depict a female with no face.

They are said to stalk hikers, and their ability to hide well is because of their shape, making them unsuspecting to those who leave the path. Because the ghosts aren’t usually associated with anyone in particular, there is speculation that they are a form of a childless ghosts (mujagwi/무자귀). They have no ancestors to perform death rites and memorial services for them and wander around restless. Most Korean ghosts are female, and most deal with some sort of ‘dying before giving birth’ extension of their existences. The egg shape might also hint towards that, because of the symbolic nature of eggs and fertility.

There is also a ghost in Japanese lore the resembles the egg ghost, the Nopper-bo (のっぺらぼう). It’s a faceless ghost that looks like a human except for the facial characteristics - kind of like what we see in the drama and the picture above - however these ghosts tend to trick people rather than hurt. They’d impersonate someone the person knows to lure them.

A lot of the stories of the egg ghost are specifically tied to hiking and the forest, however they can be found elsewhere, mostly in dark areas. There are other stories that talk of how the egg ghost is unsuspecting, that it can be anyone and once it gains the trust it is easier for them to take over that person. Egg ghosts are also able to attack and target specific prey since they are able to hide well.

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There is a riddle connected with the egg ghost, “The more you take away, the bigger I get”. A hole might start small, but the more you take from it the bigger it gets. In the drama In Bum’s father was drowning in the snowball of his actions. He was targeted most by Hak Sung and was used to do a lot of things for him, mostly things that he morally was opposed to. It could be the dramas’ intention that he was being plagued with all the things he was doing for Hak Sung that it snowballed into his son being targeted specifically and taken by the ghost. He was led astray by Hak Sung, and fell off the correct life path into danger.

While I do think that the egg ghost was probably a combination of several ghosts and stretched to fit the narrative of the drama, I do think that it was a good ghost choice. The characteristics of the ghost not having a face is creepy on it’s own, and also adds an element of unpredictability. The drama needed a specific big bad ghost that was a lot more powerful than the other spirits that we were presented with, all of whom were already more powerful than average. Her mother’s downfall and death, as well as the PTSD revolved around it with Ji Ah not remembering most of the horrific events needed to have a lot more impact and reason. The egg ghost is supposed to be one of the most powerful and feared of ghosts, so it would potentially strike a chord with viewers who know of it. It is also the sole reason why Ji Ah and In Bum are left without families, carrying the burden that is left from their family on their backs - much like the hunchbacked variation of the ghost.

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I’d love to know more about why the egg ghost is rooted mostly in the forest, specifically. It could be that it’s just an easy fear. More of a cautionary ghost, to not be led off the beaten path and fall off of a slope. Or that the forest is a great unknown for lots and adds to a lot to the relatability of there being so many of these types of beings in folklore. People mysteriously die all the time in the forest all over the world, and it is a consistent source of great fear in many different countries, tribes, and cultures. There is also a great loneliness in the forest. It is where most feel isolated, and it’s where one can really truly grasp that the world has some great unknowns. That humans aren’t the only things out there, and once taken in into a place where humans aren’t in control it’s humbling, mysterious, and potentially dangerous.

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