Lost Girls (film)

"**The** **Lost Girls**" would be the first possible feature film written and directed by Natasha Khan. Little is known about the project.

## Plot

Natasha Khan for Vogue:

> "Well, Nikki comes to L.A., and she is possessed or abducted by the Lost Girls, and in that process she becomes a vampire. The story of the Lost Girls is that they’re a group of ancient female witches [that represent] all the powerful and shadow aspects of ourselves that we tend to push away. The Lost Girls are all aspects of Nikki. In the story they pose as vampires in the city, but when they go out back to the desert where they come from, they return to their former goddess selves. So Nikki is part vampire, but she’s really just an amalgamation of all of those dark aspects of the feminine."
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## Background

Natasha Khan mentioned in an interview with NPR that the idea of making a movie started with her move from England to Los Angeles. She had just finished a 10 year record deal with a major label (Parlophone Records) and she decided that she wanted to spend time making movies, writing scripts and looking at the more visual side of things. So she went out to Los Angeles and fell in love with the place. She says that she spent many nights driving with the windows open smelling the jasmine, looking at the sea, describing it all as if it were a very intoxicating romantic feeling that made her a lover of summer. How much that she also visited Santa Cruz and that, being a great admirer of the film The Lost Boys, it was only there that he began to form the script around the themes of falling in love, but also what it would be like to be a vampire girl living in LA and travel through the city at night.

For the Spanish alternative music blog, Natasha mentioned that she studied film and music in college 15 years before the Lost Girls album was released. Still, she has always written scripts and stories and things like that. In 2016, she directed her first short film (I Do), reflecting that logical evolution of the film projects that she had already done, so she wanted to work on a feature film and, after making the short, she felt confident that maybe in Los Angeles could try it.

In January 2020, Khan said she would start a screenwriting course at UCLA, which is a Los Angeles university, and it's about relationship scripting in movies. So during the 10-week period, which is how long the course lasts, she hoped that by doing so, she would be able to perfect the script and get it ready to start filming.

On February 16, 2020, Khan confessed for NPR that Jasmine was the main character of the script she was writing:

> "It sounds pretty dark, doesn't it? Part of that makes me think of the film *Nightcrawler*, with Jake Gyllenhaal in it. There's definitely this sort of dark underbelly to LA, especially when you drive around at night and it's empty and you see homeless people sleeping in the hills and bits of rubbish blowing around. There's definitely some sinister aspects to LA. So the lyrics of this song, "Jasmine," were about a girl — much like the heady scent of jasmine that you get in LA in the summertime that perfumes the night — but she's a serial killer that stalks LA and kills people and buries them in iconic places, like the Hollywood Forever cemetery. So she's one of the vampire gang, but it's kind of a microcosmic narrative story within that idea. And she's actually the main protagonist in the script that I'm working on at the moment. I just finished a script writing course at UCLA to work on her story."
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During her interview for Clash Music in 2023 where the artist gave some previews of her album The Dream Of Delphi, Khan said that she still plans to direct the film but that it is very likely that it will be shelved along with a bunch of stories and scripts:

> "Well, for this one there’s a visual score that we’re going to be making, which I’m really excited about. And the script, well… I still haven’t directed my feature, which I’d love to make. But in a way, I almost feel like this is all supposed to be archived, and might come out when I’m dead or something. Someone will grab them and make something. There’s always stories I’m writing, so they’ll come out somehow, either film or maybe theatre. But this one will definitely have a strong visual element."
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## Influences

In addition to being influenced by The Lost Boys movie, the weather and the jasmine in Los Angeles, there were other nostalgia factors such as the movie called A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, which is a black and white Iranian vampire movie. It has a real '50s rockabilly to it, kind of a sexy element and reminded her a lot of when she went to Pakistan when she was little. Khan was born in London to an English mother, but her father's family lived in Pakistan. And coming to Los Angeles, all the deserts, the dusty roads, the heat, and there's a kind of underlying mysticism, especially in the landscapes, that reminded him a lot of Pakistan and the Middle East. So also seeing that Iranian vampire movie gave her, in Natasha's own words, "a very exotic new take on vampires. I'm always interested in subverting themes and ideas, and changing them and throwing them in and seeing what comes out."

## Music

Natasha Khan mentioned in an interview that she planned to use some songs from the album with the same name and that she would also create more instrumental tracks for the project.

"Natasha Khan for Binaural (an alternative music blog based in Spain):

> "Yes, if I did the soundtrack, I would probably use some of the Lost Girls songs, but I would also compose more instrumental music. ‘Vampires’ is the only instrumental song on the album."
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## Credits

The cast is unconfirmed, however the cast may be the same as the one that appeared in the visuals for the Lost Girls album.

### Cast

* Jasmine — TBA
* Nikki Pink — Natasha Khan
* Michael — Samuel Watkins
* Eleanor — Eleanor Epstein
* Evangeline — Evangeline Neuhart
* Avery — Avery Wheless
* Bella — Bella Gadsby
* Isa — Isa Mercado
* Anna — Anna Aguirre
* Others — Dominique N Godinez, Kenzie McClure, Angelica DeWitt

### Personnel

* Directed by — Natasha Khan
* Writer by — Natasha Khan
* Produced by — Natasha Khan (possibly), Margo Mars (possibly)
* Music by — Natasha Khan, Charles Scott IV, Jennifer Decilveo, MNEK

## References

1. ↑ https://www.vogue.com/article/bat-for-lashes-natasha-khan-is-the-ultimate-vampire-heroine
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 https://www.npr.org/2020/02/16/805707037/on-lost-girls-bat-for-lashes-spins-a-vampire-fairy-tale-with-synth-pop
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 https://www.binaural.es/entrevista/entrevista-bat-for-lashes-quizas-lost-girls-sea-mi-disco-menos-doloroso-u-oscuro/
4. ↑ https://www.clashmusic.com/features/listen-to-the-vision-bat-for-lashes-interviewed/