Andy Collier & Tor Mian | SACRIFICE

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We catch up with the writing/directing duo Andy Collier and Tor Mian to talk about the follow-up to Charismata, for which they won the Independents Day Award at the 2018 STARBURST Fantasy Awards. The new film, Sacrifice, had its world premiere at FrightFest in 2020 and stars genre legend Barbara Crampton…

STARBURST: Sacrifice is quite a different film to Charismata, how did you come up with the story?

Tor Mian: That’s an interesting question in that Sacrifice is somewhat of a cynical reaction to our experience making Charismata, which was a pretty ambitious film. While we’re extremely proud of it, we did think okay, if, if we’re in a position to make another one, let’s try and simplify. Let’s go for a more traditional horror film in terms of its structure and also in terms of the practicalities of shooting it. That was its genesis, at least, but that isn’t necessarily how things turned out in the end.

Andy Collier: We were trying to shoot a two-person cabin in the woods movie, probably in Yorkshire. We aren’t very good at following plans!

TM: We ended up we ended up shooting in Norway, which is the most expensive country on the planet with significantly more than just two actors and one location.

What was it like filming in Norway?

AC: It was difficult due to logistics, because it’s literally a seven-hour drive from Oslo. So we had to ship all this stuff from London, and it arrived two days late, so we lost two days shooting. We were completely isolated and that made it difficult. But apart from that, it was, it was great, the locals don’t get that many film crews, other than James Bond, which was filming at the same time. They were really welcoming and really nice and the extras we had were like super-well behaved. They were the best behaved extras I’ve ever seen. And you know I said to Hallstein [D. Mala], the line producer, which agency did they come from, they’re amazing. And he said none, they’re just Norwegian, so well behaved and polite. Unlike Tor, who is half-Norwegian.

TM: Yeah, as Andy says, apart from actually organising the pre-production, which was difficult for logistical reasons. Once we were there, I would say from a personal point of view, having done quite a bit of work as a line producer – certainly more work as a line producer than as a director – it was the most straightforward shoot I’ve been involved in, just because everyone was so accommodating once we were actually there. So yeah, we were extremely lucky though.

So the opening scene in the bar was not based on anything you experienced by the sounds of it?

AC: We’ve experienced that every time I’ve been drinking with tour in London.

TM: The first draft was set in the UK, so in terms of in terms of that animosity, we’ve definitely experienced that!

AC: It was actually difficult to find a bar because wherever you’re shooting you can kind of Northwest Norway is the Norwegian Bible Belt and finding a pub there is not easy.

In the one hotel within 30 kilometres of as they actually had a nightclub downstairs, which clearly because nobody there likes nightclubs, had been closed for years and they just said ‘oh you can shoot there’. An abandoned nightclub sounds like horror movie but it was quite well maintained.

Barbara Crampton Sacrifice

You got Barbara Crampton, who has relationship with H.P. Lovecraft-type material…

AC: We originally wrote that role, as a male character. And when our co-producer Sean Knopp read the script he said, ‘Barbara might love this’ and he sent it to her. And she did.

I think Barbara likes Lovecraftian stuff and she got the message it’s about lack of being in control of your own destiny. And Barbara understood that and she played it really well, really nuanced, so we were really pleased.

TM: She’d never played anything other than American and she’s playing a Norwegian character, which I think really appeal to her.

How long did you have her for? Was it a case of having to cram everything in?

Yeah, we pretty much had to cram everything in.

So from a planning perspective, we pretty much had to shoot around her schedule, of course, we were very happy to do so.

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What was your most memorable moment during filming?

TM: This film in terms of scheduling was extremely tight and we’re in a foreign country. You know that cliché that time is money, it very much rings true, so we couldn’t get behind schedule and we had a mishap on the first day, which actually knocked us back and so we’re really, really up against it. Then we’re filming a scene with a child actor who we hadn’t met before. He turns up on set and he has a complete and utter freakout, and he just refuses to go in front of the camera, he literally runs off set. So part of me is thinking ‘we’re going to have to cut this entire scene’ but if we cut the entire scene, the film doesn’t make sense. We can’t afford to stay another day we’re completely and utterly screwed. All the tickets are booked already and I’m having a panic attack. You have to remember we’re absolutely in the middle of nowhere. This is the opposite of filming in a normal city like London, which is what we used to. And then just out of nowhere, the line producer this walks in with another kid. A completely a random kid was walking past, and he said ‘do you want to be an actor in the film?’ Now this is not just being an actor in the background, he’s actually got lines. And the kid did it. That is the best bit of line producing I’ve ever seen on anything I’ve ever been involved in. So yeah, it was very memorable to me personally.

AC: My most memorable was probably the last scene in the movie, which I think was the last thing that we shot.  We were really constrained by the Norwegian latitude. The water temperature is normally quite deadly, but it’s cool in July and August, so we thought we need to we need to pick July or August. But because there are so many night shoots, at that latitude, in June, there’s no darkness, so we chose August when we had four or five hours of darkness. So we had like four hours to get that scene in the can. We were really racing against the light and we’re running around shooting things – no breaks – and right at the end, the sun comes up. So the final shot is dawn, which actually works quite well, it looks pretty good. But had we been five minutes later, it would have simply become daytime in the finished film.

Finally, what’s next for you two?

TM: As with most filmmakers, everything is COVID dependant, so very much in limbo. Just before we had Sacrifice greenlit, we were about to shoot another horror film set in set in Utah. It’s one that’s quite difficult to describe, it’s essentially a homosexual zombie Western, and we’re hoping to get that back off the ground, that’s at least the intention.

Sacrifice is available now on digital. You can read our review here and watch the full interview below:

 

Check out these behind the scenes images (click to expand):

Five Films to Check Out on Horror Channel This Week – 150321

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Things are getting brighter outside but there are still plenty of darker things to watch on Horror Channel each week. Here are some of our favourites this week:

Tuesday March 16th, 3pm – Special Unit 2: The Grain

The second season of Evan Katz’s cult series in which a secret police department hunt mythological creatures. In this episode, one of the characters being taken over by a ‘sandman’, which lets her act out her wildest fantasies while asleep.

Wednesday March 17th, 12.40am Night of the Creeps (1986)

“Good news, girls! You’re dates are here. The bad news is they’re dead.” The classic line from cop Tom Atkins sets the tone for this fun schlocky horror from director Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad).

Thursday March 18th, 10.55pm – Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)

Another delve into the dark world of the Cenobites. Doug Bradley is back as Pinhead as well as his earlier self, a World War I soldier, Captain Elliot Spencer. Deep Space Nine’s Terry Farrell also stars.

Saturday March 20th, 6.40pm – Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)

Another fantastic adventure with the legendary Sinbad, played here by Patrick Wayne. Former Doctor Who Patrick Troughton and Jane Seymour also appear, but the real star is the brilliant stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen.

Saturday March 21st, 10.55pm – Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)

The third (and final) entry into the Urban Legend series takes a supernatural approach rather than relying on the slasher tropes. Directed by Mary Lambert and starring Kate Mara (House of Cards), it’s guaranteed to give you some chills!

Tune into Horror Channel on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 68, Freesat 138.

Things That Go Bump in the FRIGHT NIGHT

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Here at STARBURST, we’ve been fans of horror films ever since we were allowed to stay up late and watch them. Between us, we’ve clocked up more hours watching scary movies than would be considered normal. We often discuss and argue films whenever we can, but we all agree that among our favourite movie monsters are the vampires. I mean, come on – we’re food to them. They’re hungry predators, looking for their next meal and we’re on the menu. Unless we’re talking about Twilight, True Blood, or The Vampire Diaries. (Come on, you don’t fall for your food.)

Buffy, however, is a totally different matter and was the last word on proper, traditional vampires. It also was the first and last word on teenage vampire romances. Buffy and Angel – never was that dynamic equalled, let alone bettered.

But as a bunch of Buffy fans, it has to be admitted that ingenious as that series was, it owed something to the genius of Tom Holland, who wrote and directed Fright Night. Granted, Buffy owed something to The Lost Boys as well, but Fright Night came first.

Even the Scream films owe a debt to Fright Night when you think about it. The characters in Scream are aware of what’s happening around them because they watch slasher movies and thus, they know the rules and conventions of the slasher genre. In Fright Night, the same concept is true – nine years earlier.

Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) is a kid in his late teens, and he is a huge horror movie fan. He’s a little bit nerdy, an outsider and mixes with another outsider ‘Evil’ Ed Thompson (Stephen Geoffreys). We asked the film’s director, Tom Holland, if any of the characters in the film were based on himself or any of his friends growing up: “Ed was based on every horror fan that I ever went to high school with. Charley Brewster was me. Evil Ed was all my weird friends. If you were into horror back in those days, oh boy… something was a little wrong with you.”

Charley has a girlfriend Amy (Amanda Bearse) and pretty much, all is well in his world. He’s watching his favourite TV show, Fright Night – a horror movie programme hosted by his hero Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) – a fading horror movie actor. Tom explained the concept of the show-within-a-film, “I grew up watching the American International [AIP] horror movies with Vincent Price, and the Hammer horror films and that is my loving homage to those. Peter Vincent is named after Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.”

“It was my memory of growing up being a horror fan, because in the United States, back in the sixties, pretty much the only place you could find horror was on the independent local TV stations,” he continued, “On Friday night, they would run something called ‘The Friday Night Frights’ and they would start them at 11:00 at night. A lot of them had different local horror hosts. You’d have Zacherley coming out of a coffin, or Vampira in a fog-filled set.”  

“You’d have these men and women who were terribly hokey and comical. They had no money because it was the local stations. They’d throw up a black flat behind the host and they’d pontificate in Frankenstein type voices, and I felt a great deal of affection for them. They’d have these god-awful horror films, and in-between the terrible stuff would be the Hammer and the AIP stuff.”

As Charley looks out of the window, he sees a coffin being carried into the deserted house next door. He tries to tell Amy, who doesn’t believe him because a similar graveyard scene of a coffin being carried is being shown on the TV.

Charley is instantly distrustful of the new neighbour – and his suspicions seem founded when some prostitutes go missing, one of whom Charley recognises as a visitor to the house next door. Screams are heard at night, and Charley sees his neighbour seduce a young woman through his bedroom window… it all points to a vampire next door. Makes perfect sense as the only possible explanation to a horror movie fan – right? Sadly, Amy and Ed don’t quite see things the same way. Ed is happy to advise on the best means of dealing with the vampire, though – for some quick cash.

Thus, armed with knowledge gleaned from Universal and Hammer movies via Evil Ed and because he has watched all the old films, Charley believes he can handle a vampire. He seals his windows, knowing that a vampire can’t enter a property unless invited. As he’s driving the last nail into his window frame, Charley is called downstairs by his mother to meet her guest… the new neighbour, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) – the vampire. As he has been invited over, he can now come and go as he pleases.

Charley’s miseries accelerate from zero to sub-light speed when he calls in the police claiming knowledge of how the prostitutes are going missing. Visiting the house with a detective, he announces his vampire theory and is ridiculed by both the cop and Dandridge’s henchman. But Dandridge now sees Charley as a clear threat and must be silenced, either by threat or other, more permanent means.

Dandridge attacks Charley in his home that night but is repelled when Charley drives a pencil through the back of the vampire’s hand. Now desperate for help, Charley approaches Peter Vincent, the famed vampire hunter of the movies he loves so much, but catches the actor on a bad day. Vincent has just been fired from his job as host of Fright Night because, as he puts it: “Nobody wants to see vampire killers anymore, or vampires either. Apparently, all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins.” Vincent doesn’t want to hear what he believes to be the demented rantings of a crazy fan; he has problems of his own, such as paying the rent now he’s out of work.

When asked about casting the late Roddy McDowall for the role, one of his last and most memorable appearances, Tom had some fond recollections of his time with the legendary actor:

“I can’t remember now, but I wrote Class of 1984, and he starred in that too. I remember him being very moving in that, but to be honest with you, I haven’t seen it in a long time. I could go on and on about Roddy. His passing was a terrible loss to the film community.” Holland continued reminiscing, “Roddy did so much to help me as the first-time director of Fright Night he just loved film. He had the biggest collection of 16mm prints of anybody in town. Whenever I wanted to see a film, and I couldn’t get a print of it, I went to Roddy, and he would run me a dub out of his personal collection. It was an absolutely astounding collection.”

“He also was friends with everybody.” Tom continued, “Every major actor. And he went back and maintained friendships, even go out to the Motion Picture Home and visit with the silent motion picture stars that even at that time, had been forgotten. He walked me around MGM, which is now Sony, telling me where this or that famous moment happened. He pointed out to me where Katherine Hepburn met Spencer Tracy. He was amazing; he’d been a child actor, he’d been through the creation of the studio system. He was just an amazing reservoir of knowledge. If you were a film fan hanging out with Roddy McDowall, it was the ultimate pleasure because he could talk about it so knowledgeably because he’d been there and knew it. He was a living, walking history of Hollywood and film.”

“If he liked you, and thank God, he liked me; he was very supportive.” Holland revealed, coming back to the film, “You’ve got to remember Fright Night was my first directorial effort, and the fact that he took me seriously, he took the other actors and made so much possible for me. He and Chris Sarandon. Chris should not be forgotten either. He’s an extraordinary actor.”

It’s when Vincent receives an eviction order from his landlord that Evil Ed and Amy call, desperate to elicit his help with Charley, who they believe to be delusional. Accepting the offer of $500, Vincent agrees to perform a staged ‘vampire test’ with Dandridge’s co-operation where a bottle of holy water (in reality, tap water) will be drunk thus proving once and for all that Dandridge is not a vampire.

Well, the best-laid plans of mice, men and phoney vampire hunters… Vincent realises – quite by accident – that Dandridge doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror in a scene that pays homage to Universal’s Dracula (1931). He’s dealing with a real vampire. This is far more than he bargained for.

Matters escalate when Dandridge starts taking Charley’s friends one by one, turning Ed into a werewolf who attacks Vincent and is killed by him, albeit accidentally.

Amy, meanwhile, becomes Dandridge’s vampiric bride, and along with the transformation comes a growth of long blonde hair. The physical change is inexplicable as she was a brunette with short hair previously. But if we can accept that Dandridge’s bite can transform Ed into a werewolf, I guess we can go along with his ability to turn Amy into the apparent reincarnation of his lost love.

With the odds stacked against him, Charley faces the vampire in a deadly showdown, with the resolute vampire hunter heroically, if a little ineptly by his side. The duo survive an ordeal, which is visually reminiscent at times of Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot (1979), but was the vampire menace finally thwarted? After all, we hear Evil Ed’s insane cackle just before the credits roll.

In 1988, Fright Night 2 was ready for release when fate took an unexpectedly sinister and tragic turn. As reported at the time, the chairman of Live Entertainment, Jose Menendez who was handling the film’s distribution and was actively planning for a third movie, was murdered by his two sons on the day he met with Roddy McDowall and director Tommy Lee Wallace. In the confusion that followed, this film was somehow lost in the shuffle, plans for a worldwide theatrical release were shelved, and consequently, many people don’t even know it exists. The film eventually found its audience on VHS and is, to this day, awaiting an official UK DVD release.

Three years have passed since the events of Fright Night. Three years of therapy for poor Charley Brewster, who is now at college. The therapy has been successful, Charley now believes the far more logical explanation that the late Jerry Dandridge wasn’t a vampire at all, but a serial killer masquerading as one.

One evening, he and his girlfriend Alex (Traci Lind) visit Peter Vincent, still a fading, hammy horror star, past his prime, and host of local horror TV show Fright Night and talk about the past. Before leaving, Charley notices four coffin-like crates being brought into Vincent’s apartment building – just as he’d seen Dandridge’s three years earlier. But this time, he draws the curtains and shakes off the supposition that the bloodsuckers are back because after all, vampires don’t exist.

Poor delusional Charley Brewster.

Jerry Dandridge’s sister Regina (Julie Carmen) is in town with her night-crawling posse, looking for revenge on those who killed her beloved brother. While Jerry was basically reasonable and just wanted to be left to kill people in peace until Charley became a nuisance, Regina is far crueller. She follows Charley and Alex as he takes her back to her dorm, and as they kiss – unknown to them, she’s on the roof of their car, manipulating what Charley sees as her seduction begins.

She aims to turn Charley into a vampire, purely for the purposes of extending his life so she can torture him for centuries. But what of Vincent? She replaces him as the host of Fright Night. But he has already realised during a party that he’s again dealing with real vampires and his bid to slay her with a stake live on TV during a transmission of Fright Night only lands him in an asylum. Meanwhile, Charley is succumbing to Regina’s will (and charms) and is in the early stages of becoming a creature of the night. It’s up to Alex to spring Vincent from the state hospital before the final transformation can take place for Charley in a reversal of the events of the first film.

Sadly, there would be no third film, but the ending left the door slightly open. Alex and Charley embrace, as they hear a bat flapping. But the wide shot reveals they’re living next to a field of roses, which are known to be among the aromatic plants that can repel vampires.

Stephen Geoffreys was asked to reprise his role as Evil Ed in this sequel, but couldn’t due to a scheduling conflict with another filming commitment. It’s a shame – it would’ve been nice to hear his immortal line one more time.

All together now: “Oh Brewster, you’re so cooooool.”

FRIGHT NIGHT screens on Horror Channel. Tune in via SKY 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138.

[ENDED] Win Horror Classic VIY on Blu-ray from Eureka!

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We’ve teamed up with Eureka Entertainment to give three lucky readers a chance to win the amazing Russian classic VIY on limited edition Blu-ray. Just read on, watch the trailer, and enter the competition below…

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Eureka Entertainment to release VIY [Вий], the ground-breaking gothic folktale made in Russia during the Soviet era, presented as a Limited Two-Disc Blu-ray Edition (3000 Copies Only) as a part of The Masters of Cinema Series from March 15th. The Limited-Edition will feature a Bonus Disc containing A Holy Place (1990, dir. Djordje Kadijevic) and an exclusive O-Card Slipcase.

Bursting with startling imagery and stunning practical effects courtesy of directors Konstantin Yershov, Georgi Kropachyov, and perhaps most notably, artistic director Aleksandr Ptushko (the legendary special effects artist whose spectacular stop-motion effects and innovative colour cinematography has seen him referred to as the Soviet equivalent of Willis O’Brien, Ray Harryhausen, and even Mario Bava), VIY has influenced generations of directors for more than half a century.

In 19th century Russia, a seminary student is forced to spend three nights with the corpse of a beautiful young witch. But when she rises from the dead to seduce him, it will summon a nightmare of fear, desire, and the ultimate demonic mayhem.

The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present VIY in its UK debut on Blu-ray from a HD restoration of the original film elements.

Exclusive to this Limited Edition, The Masters of Cinema series also presents director Djordje Kadijevic’s A HOLY PLACE [Sveto mesto] for the first time ever on home video in the UK.

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VIY, the ground-breaking Gothic folktale, is OUT NOW on Blu-ray and can be purchased here https://amzn.to/3miQfeg

[ENDED] Win Eureka’s NIGHTWING/SHADOW OF THE HAWK Blu-ray

nightwing win

We’ve teamed up with Eureka to give 3 lucky readers a chance to win the Nightwing/Shadow of the Hawk double bill Blu-ray. Just read on and enter below…

Are a wave of mysterious deaths on a Native American reservation being caused by killer vampire bats, or a curse from beyond the grave? Featuring special effects work by Carlo Rambaldi (Alien, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial), Nightwing was one of many creature features produced to cash in on the success of Jaws, but director Arthur Hiller (Love Story) also imbues the film with a humanitarian edge. Described in recent years as an “eco-gothic Western”, and “a great exploration of social change and race relations”, Nightwing comes to Blu-ray for the first time ever in the UK.

An ageing medicine man (Academy Award nominee Chief Dan George; The Outlaw Josey Wales) recruits his sceptical grandson (Jan-Michael Vincent; Airwolf, The Mechanic) to aid him in a spiritual battle against evil spirits and black magic. Filmed in the forests of British Columbia to stunning effect, Shadow of the Hawk features a number of eerie and effective sequences of supernatural terror, and Eureka Classics is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time ever on home video in the UK.

nightwing box

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NIGHTWING & SHADOW OF THE HAWK, a 1970s Killer creature double feature, is OUT NOW on Blu-ray and can be purchased here https://amzn.to/3oQNlzj

MEGA CITY’S MOST WANTED: Judge Dredd’s 10 Most Notorious Enemies!

Judge Dredd’s arrival on Netflix has breathed a new life into Alex Garland’s criminally underappreciated comic book adaptation. Released in 2012, Dredd was a (block) riot, finally giving Dredd the movie he deserved, years after the infamous Stallone misfire. Unfortunately, not only did audiences not see it that way, most didn’t see it at all.

Still, Dredd and his world remain as popular as ever. There’s the resurgence of the movie on Netflix; 2000 AD and Penguin’s audio adaptations of The Pit and America; and the impending arrival of a Mega City One TV show. What more excuse do we need to take a look through the rogues gallery at Dredd’s greatest enemies?

Honorable Mention: Ma-Ma Madrigal: What list of great Dredd enemies would be complete without Madeline ‘Ma-Ma’ Madrigal? True, Lena Headey’s drug kingpin may not have originated on the comic book page, but the antagonist of 2012’s Dredd is one of the character’s most memorable enemies. This terrifying presence proved her worth as a great villain; not just a great Dredd villain, but also one of the great cinematic monsters of our time.

10. Orlok the Assassin: The Soviet assassin who heralded the start of the Apocalypse War. Releasing a chemical agent into the Big Meg, Orlok caused a city-wide Block War, successfully distracting the Judges from a series of inbound nuclear attacks by East-Meg One. Orlok remained at large for some time afterwards, only to be captured after his escapades in the floating ‘Sin City’. He was duly executed for his numerous war crimes.

9. War Marshall Kazan: Orlok wasn’t working alone though. Corralling the nuclear arsenal of East-Meg One, War Marshall Kazan spearheaded East Meg One’s attack upon the distracted Mega City, unleashing a series of devastating nuke attacks upon the city across all fronts. It wasn’t called the Apocalypse War for nothing – Dredd only just managed to defeat the Russian forces, obliterating East-Meg One in the process. Unlike Orlok, the survivors of the Apocalypse War didn’t have to wait years for Kazan to be brought to justice – he was executed by Dredd before the rubble (on either side) had settled.

8. Murd the Oppressor: During the Judge Child Quest, Dredd encountered the alien sorcerer Murd the Oppressor and his pet toad, Sagbelly. To complete his quest, Dredd required a substance oozed from one of Sagbelly’s warts. Neither Sagbelly nor his master were forthcoming, and Murd actually succeeded in killing Dredd. The Necromancer used his powers to resurrect Dredd, who returned the favour by killing them both. He makes the odd appearance in flashback sequences (one of which revealed him to be mentor to one Sabbat the Necromagus) and was killed all over again in Helter Skelter.

 

7. Sabbat the Necromagus: During a routine training mission in the Cursed Earth, Dredd and a small group of cadets were shocked to find themselves at the centre of a zombie apocalypse. They fought their way back to Mega City One, only to find that the thing had gone global. The man responsible was Sabbat, an alien necromancer who wore a ponytail, pointed Spock ears and a cloak made up of screaming faces. After bringing the whole world to its knees, Sabbat was defeated by an alliance between Dredd and bounty hunter Johnny Alpha. His undead head currently rests upon his own power source, occasionally bringing the odd zombie to (un)life but otherwise powerless.

6. PJ Maybe: One of Mega City’s most insidious threats emerged from the most inauspicious of beginnings. PJ Maybe was a child genius who committed his first murder at the tender age of 12. Escaping the mental asylum in which he had been imprisoned by Dredd, Maybe amassed a fortune and faked his own death. He was elected mayor of Mega City One, despite the fact his mass-murdering ways remained intact. When he attempted to murder the Chief Judge however, the game was up. Their game of cat-and-mouse continued for years (even during Day of Chaos, in which he amassed a collection of Dark Judges, trapped in wine bottles), before Dredd tracked him down and – you guessed it – executed him.

 

5. Chopper: Marlon Shakespeare, AKA Chopper, highlights the lawman’s firm but unfair outlook. Chopper is essentially a sympathetic character; one of the Big Meg’s bored, lost young people. He started out as a graffiti artist defacing Mega City structures (his scrawl can be seen graffiti’d on a wall in Dredd 3D’s Peach Tree block) before being apprehended by Dredd. He re-emerged as a sky-surfer; a dangerous and illegal hobby which Dredd did not look kindly upon at all. As Mega City chanted his name, Chopper became a public hero. He later escaped to Australia to compete in a sky-surfing competition. He was pursued by Dredd, but escaped again during an uncharacteristic hesitation from the lawman.

4. Chief Judge Caligula: Like his Roman namesake, Cal was a despotic madman who brought Mega City One to ruin during his short reign. With his trusty Goldfish (!) and a man-eating alien named Grampus the Klegg planted as his deputies, Cal implemented a number of ridiculous laws (making happiness illegal) and punishments (he had a confidante pickled because he looked a bit stressed). Dredd rebelled, and Cal’s dream of Making Mega City One Great Again flopped. He was toppled (from a great height) by a sewer-dweller named Fergee. He later returned as the main antagonist of Garth Ennis’s Helter Skelter, and in a recent Dredd/Johnny Alpha Crossover.

Honorable Mention – SJS Judge Pin: The SJS (Judges who judge the Judges) are not shy of a shady figure or two. Lest we forget that Caligula himself rose from the subdivision’s ranks. More recently, Dredd did battle with the crazed Judge Pin; a serial killer with a thing for ‘unworthy’ Judges. She had Dredd on the ropes for a while – blinding him and holding him hostage in her underground lair – but the lawman inevitably broke free and brought Pin to (a particularly grisly) justice.

3. The Angel Gang: A crime family so iconic that not even Sylvester Stallone could screw them up. The Angel Gang first appeared trying to manipulate the valuable Judge Child to their own ends. The notorious Cursed Earth family consisted of Pa, Fink, Link, Junior and Mean Angel. When it was decided that baby Mean just wasn’t mean enough, Pa had him surgically transformed into the Mean Machine; his temper controlled by a dial on his forehead. Although incredibly stupid, Mean was a persistent threat to Dredd over the years. Especially after Dredd killed Pa and his brothers, leaving Mean an orphan. Their vendetta persisted for years, in spit of a number of reluctant team-ups. He was finally rehabilitated and turned over to his estranged son, with whom he lived happily for a while. However, like so many others, Day of Chaos did a number on Mean and, after returning to the Cursed Earth, he was captured by a gang of slavers. Mean Angel went out in a blaze of glory and is currently presumed dead. But this wouldn’t be the first time the Mean Machine has died…

 

2. Rico Dredd: Dredd’s most notable test tube brother was sent to the penal colony of Titan after his little sibling (Dredd is his junior by 12 minutes) arrested him for corruption. He returned to Earth seeking retribution, but Dredd shot him dead during a duel. Like most of Dredd’s enemies, Rico stayed dead. However, he returns occasionally in flashbacks, and his alternate-universe self also made an appearance during Helter Skelter. His Titan adventures are well worth seeking out, in Michael Carroll’s prose prequel Rico Dredd: The Titan Years.

Honorable Mention – Judge Grice: After making an attempt on Dredd’s life during the city’s democracy referendum, the Judge was shipped off to serve time on Titan. Grice led Titan’s revolt and subsequent return to Earth, raining fire, brimstone and a deadly plague upon a weakened Justice Department. Dredd prevailed – turning Grice into paste beneath the wheels of his Lawmaster – but took a brutal beating in the process.

1. The Dark Judges: Mega City One’s most persistent threat, if only because Judge Dredd has executed everyone else. Judge Death and the Dark Judges come from an alternate dimension – the aptly named Deadworld. After noticing that all crime was committed by the living, Judge Death decreed that, logically, all life must be a crime. Transformed by a pair of like-minded witches (The Sisters of Death), he sentenced his whole world to death, and then sought out other dimensions to judge. Death is usually accompanied by fellow Dark Judges Fire, Fear and Mortis. They were responsible for Necropolis. During which they transformed Mega City One into their own private Deadworld. Although the Dark Judges have kept a relatively low profile ever since, they remain an ever-looming threat to Dredd and the citizens of the Big Meg. They are currently off-world, terrorizing other planets and colonies – but no doubt planning their return and revenge. Thankfully, while they’re gone, you can read their spin-off adventures in The Fall of Deadworld and Dominion. Truly, you cannot kill what doessss not live!

Which is perhaps for the best, as Dredd has killed just about everyone else…

How Underdog Vikings Became a Cultural TV Heavyweight

Image source: Pixabay

Some TV shows are almost guaranteed to be hits before they are even launched, while others have their work cut out to attract a mainstream audience. Vikings definitely falls into the latter category.

Humble Beginnings

The Norse-themed drama did not have the weight of HBO, AMC, or Netflix behind it, but instead began life on the Canadian History channel. The network had long produced engaging historical documentaries and had also dabbled with fictional works, but they did not have a major reputation for producing hit drama series. Despite this, they allocated a $40m budget (over $4m per episode) for the first season – bigger than the likes of Breaking Bad – indicating that the producers obviously had big ambitions for the show.

That aspiration was justified when the show drew more than six million viewers upon launch. While it never hit the dizzy heights of mega-hits like Game of Thrones, it picked up a loyal cult following and was renewed for a total of 6 seasons – a genuine feat in the age of cancelled shows – and has also gone on to influence other related media.

Related Media

Prompted by the popularity of the TV show, Zenescope partnered with the producers to launch a Vikings comic book. The book was written by show screenwriter Michael Hirst and was set before season one of the show. The comic provides some background to the stories of Ragnar, Rollo, and Lagertha. It first appeared at the Comic-Con convention in 2013 and was also distributed on the ComiXology digital platform.

There was also a licensed casino game based on Vikings, which provided a real treat for fans of the show who also often play online pokies at SkyCity Casino, for example. The game captures the brutality of the TV series and features characters including Bjorn, Floki, Lagertha, and Ragnar. The imagery, soundtrack, and symbols utilised in the game are also all in keeping with the show, and the reels provide a pocket-sized burst of the action-packed TV universe.

Similar Shows

A couple of years after Vikings was launched, other shows catering to a similar audience began to appear. Most notably was the BBC’s The Last Kingdom, which later appeared on Netflix, and is set in England during the age of the Viking incursions.

Later, in 2018, Britannia was launched on Sky Atlantic and Amazon Prime with an all-star cast and a sizeable budget. The show is set in the time of the Roman invasion of Britain and has already been renewed for a third season, which began filming in 2020.

Spin-off

Vikings may have finished, but a spin-off is already in the works. Vikings: Valhalla began filming in 2020 and will be set a century after the original, and will also feature many familiar characters from Norse history such as Leif Erikson, Freydis Eiriksdottir, and Harald Hardrada. The Norman King William the Conqueror, who was a Viking descendant, will also appear. Many of the cast have already been announced on social media. The show is being produced by MGM and should make it onto our screens – via Netflix – at some point in 2021.

When a show diversifies into related media and spawns a big-budget spin-off, it’s a good measure of its cultural impact, and Vikings is no exception. Despite its humble beginnings, the Vikings legacy looks like it’s here to stay and, if the new show is a popular as expected, we could see even more Viking-related shows in the future.

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: STEPHEN J CANNELL – PART 1

Ah, telephemera… those shows whose stay with us was tantalisingly brief, snatched away before their time, and sometimes with good cause. Dedicated miners of this fecund seam begin to notice the same names cropping up, again and again, as if their whole career was based on a principle of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. What’s more, it isn’t all one-season failures and unsold pilots, there’s genuine gold to be found amongst their hoards; these men are surely the Titans of Telephemera!

STEPHEN J CANNELL

Vying with Glen A Larson and Aaron Spelling for the 1980s greatest TV producer, Stephen J Cannell had his first hit with Baretta in 1975, and went on to create The Rockford Files, Hardcastle & McCormick, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, The Commish, Silk Stalkings, and Renegade, before retiring in 1995 after twenty-five years in the business. Cannell had plenty of hits, and also more than a few shows that lasted beyond their first season yet failed to leave a lasting legacy. In this week’s Titans of Telephemera, we’ll look at those shows…

The Greatest American Hero (1981, ABC): On the face of it, any series that last for three seasons can’t be considered a failure, but The Greatest American Hero – the first show to carry the Stephen J Cannell Productions logo – had a troubled history which resulted in just forty-four episodes being produced, the last five of which never aired.

The Greatest American Hero was the story of Ralph Hinkley (although for half of Season 1, after John Hinckley Jr shot Ronald Regan, he became Ralph Hanley), a schoolteacher who is gifted a supersuit by a bunch of aliens, only to lose the instruction manual and have to work it out for himself. Hinkley was played by William Katt, who had made his name in surf porn classic Big Wednesday and as a young Sundance Kid in Butch & Sundance: The Early Days, and he was given back-up by Robert Culp’s FBI agent, Bill Maxwell, as they thwarted threats to the safety of planet Earth.

Inspired by the Marvel Comics of the 1960s and 1970s, Cannell wanted the show to emphasize the hero’s real-life problems, but clashed with the network, who thought there should be more superhero action and thrilling rescues. When his original champions, Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, left ABC, Cannell often came out on the losing end of the battle, and the results showed in what reached the screen, a halfway house falling between two stools.

The short first season – just nine episodes, which aired in a six-month period in the Spring and Summer of 1981 – did well enough for an order of a full second season of twenty-two, and the show finished a respectable forty-fourth in the year-end ratings list. This meant a third season, but the bloom was off the rose, and it sank to ninety-two in the ratings, and was cancelled with five episodes left to air. Later home video releases included the unaired episodes, the last of which saw Ralph’s identity revealed to the world, and his choice of a replacement – a woman!

Cannell intended to continue the show with The Greatest American Heroine, but this died on the vine in 1986, and a filmed pilot was not picked up by ABC, although it has joined the other episodes in syndication. Katt and Cannell reunited for 1989’s political drama Top of the Hill, which lasted ten episodes before cancellation, by which point the producer had several hits under his belt, including The A-Team, which debuted two weeks before The Greatest American Hero made its final bow.

Stingray (1985, NBC): In the summer of 1985, Cannell already had three shows on the NBC schedule in The A-Team, Hunter, and Riptide (the latter two co-created with future Titan subject Frank Lupo), and joining them in July was another Cannell show in the shape of Stingray, in which Nick Mancuso starred as Ray, a mysterious man who drove a Corvette Stingray and helped out those in trouble.

Ray’s services could be obtained by answering a small ad in a newspaper, which was pretty much the same idea as The Equalizer, which popped up on CBS two months later, but the twist was that Ray would only ask for a favour in return for his help, and during the course of the series he would call in favours from past clients to help solve new cases.

After a successful pilot in July 1985, a short first season began in March 1986, which revealed more clues about Ray’s mysterious past, as well as including MTV-style music video interludes, with montage-like scenes shot to episode-specific songs from Mike Post and others, and the whole package was novel enough for a second season of fifteen episodes to air from January 1987.

Helping out crop dusters, Soviet defectors, Native Americans, and victims of experiments gone awry, Ray’s adventures did decent ratings but NBC declined to pick it up for a third season and The Equalizer outlived it by two years and a pair of movies in the 2010s. With Wiseguy and 21 Jump Street beginning long runs later in 1987, Cannell probably wasn’t too concerned at the loss of Stingray, but you can’t leave the idea of a guy helping out people in trouble alone for too long…

Booker (1989, Fox): Fox had launched in Fall 1986 as an attempt to do a fourth network, rivalling ABC, NBC, and CBS for the attentions of America’s couch potatoes, and their first real hits came the following year, with Married… With Children and 21 Jump Street making their prime-time bows. In 1989, with 21 Jump Street still riding high in the ratings, Fox asked Stephen J Cannell to create a spin-off show, much as they would later do with The Simpsons, which was spun out of The Tracy Ullman Show.

Cannell came up with Booker, starring Richard Grieco’s character from Jump Street, now working for the US office of a large Japanese company, investigating dodgy insurance claims. On the side, Booker also helped out friends and family in need, because who the Hell is interested in insurance fraud?!?

To ensure the success of the new show, guest appearances and crossovers with its parent show became a feature, but even the addition of Lori Petty to the cast halfway through its run couldn’t save it from the axe, and Fox declined to renew Booker for a second season, replacing it in the schedule with the sitcoms True Colors and Parker Lewis Can’t Lose.

Grieco turned to movies, enjoying minor success as Bugsy Siegel in Mobsters, but largely enjoying a long string of underwhelming returns, while his 21 Jump Street co-star Johnny Depp became a megastar. Cannell, meanwhile, continued churning out risk-averse hit shows like Silk Stalkings and Street Justice, but he returned for another bite of the “hero named after his car” cherry in 1993…

Cobra (1993, syndication): After Stingray came Cobra, which saw former American Ninja Michael Dudikoff play Ronald “Scandal” Jackson, a former US Navy Seal who went AWOL rather than kill civilians, retiring to an Inuit village in Alaska, where he carved out a new life. His past caught up to him, however, and he was attacked and left for dead, only to wake up with a new face and a chance at justice…

Yes, this is Knight Rider, except that – instead of KITT – Scandal drives a classic AC Cobra, sadly without William Daniels hiding in the dashboard. The show was originally called Viper, but NBC were developing a show (which also had elements of Knight Rider) of that title at the same time, and so the switch to Cobra was made, despite the 1986 Sylvester Stallone film of that name.

Cobra was also the name of Scandal’s bosses, and while it also shared a name with the villainous outfit from GI Joe, this organisation was concerned with helping out people who hadn’t got justice from the justice system. Joined by the daughter of Cobra’s founder, Danielle LaPoint (played by soap alumnus Allison Hossack), Scandal kicked ass and took names, all the while trying to find out who killed his father five years before…

There was probably too much in Cobra, with Danielle also butting heads with her father, and seeking answers about the death of her mother, but Dudikoff was nothing if not a charismatic action lead. Despite crafting the show so that episodes could be watched out of order – perfect for syndication – there wasn’t enough interest for a second season, and Dudikoff returned to direct-to-video action flicks. Cannell was winding down his TV career, opting for an early retirement, but he’d managed to accumulate a far back catalogue, and not all of those shows made it as far as the end of their first season. Join us next week for a look at some of those failed projects, including a show about a troop of bounty hunters who are all descended from Wyatt Earp…

Further Reading from STARBURST:

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 1

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 2

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 3

TITANS OF TELEPHEMERA: GLEN A LARSON – PART 4

Joe Hill | NOS4A2

joe hill

STARBURST chats to author JOE HILL about the TV adaptation of NOS4A2, which is now available on DVD.

“There was a bridge in Bangor, Maine where I grew up. It was this terrifying covered bridge that crossed the Penobscot River,” author Joe Hill recalls from his home in New Hampshire. “It smelled of dog pee and bats and if you rode across it on your bike, you could see the gaps between the board and the river below. We would dare each other to ride across it because there was this real feeling that at any moment the thing could collapse. So it was like a right of passage and courage to ride your bike across it and I guessed I always kind of imagined that when I came out on the other end I would come out in Narnia or something. It kind of had a feel that there was something about this that wasn’t a normal bridge. So I’ve kind of carried that bridge in my head for years and eventually I found the right book to use it in.”

That bridge would eventually lead the son of arguably the world’s most acclaimed and prolific living authors to a keyboard on the 4th of July, 2009 as he begun work on his third novel, NOS4A2. Now, over a decade later, the story has made its way to screens in the acclaimed AMC series of the same name and he couldn’t be more delighted. “The show and the story is about this sinister guy, Charlie Manx, who’s over a hundred years old,” Hill explains with enthusiasm. “He drives this car that runs on human souls instead of gasoline. Charlie has been abducting children since the 1930s and he takes them on a long drive, and over the course of this drive he feeds off of their souls. When he’s done with them, they’re little monsters, everything delights them, so they’re filled with happiness. Their mouths are like these fang-lined holes. He takes them to this almost demonic other world called Christmasland where every night is Christmas Eve and every day is Christmas morning and the fun never stops. The kids play on all the amusement rides and are always having fun whether they’re on the rollercoaster or they’re playing a game of ‘Scissors for the Drifter’ where someone gets stabbed to death.”

“Charlie meets his match when he runs afoul of Vic McQueen who is a young woman who has a supernatural gift of her own. She can get out on her Triumph motorcycle and find her way to a bridge – the Shorter Way Bridge – that really doesn’t exist in our world. She can use her powers to materialise it into existence. While most bridges cover physical distance, her bridge covers the distance between lost and found. So if there’s something she’s looking for it’s always on the other side even if it’s a 1000 miles away. If she’s looking for a lost watch, she can leave the bridge in New Hampshire and arrive on the other side in Rhode Island and get the watch from where it was lost years before. So these two people then clash over the course of 20 years in the book and in the TV show.”

The rickety bridge from Hill’s childhood wasn’t the only inspiration that fed into the crafting of this modern day horror classic. “I was thinking about this Lon Chaney quote,” Hill explains.  “He once said; ‘There’s nothing funny about a clown at midnight’ and I totally get that. You know if you woke up at midnight and you looked out the window and a clown was standing under the streetlight with a single black balloon you’d probably fall to your knees and start crying for Momma. And by the same token I was thinking that Christmas music is heart-warming in December, but if it’s the middle of a blazing hot summer and you’re lost in the woods and you’re walking along a path and you come to an old barn with boarded up windows and you hear watery Christmas music playing inside you’re not going to go in to see who’s there! You’re just going to turn around and go in the other direction as fast as your feet can carry you. So that’s a lot of what writing successful horror fiction is about, is finding these juxtapositions. You take something lovely and comforting and then poison it for everyone. That’s me, I’m the poisoner!”

nos4a2

While Hill might be more than happy to contaminate our hearts and minds with abject terror, one thing he has fallen short of is allowing his fans to feel short changed when it comes to adaptations. Hill’s critically acclaimed comic series Locke and Key has recently been picked up for a third season on Netflix and this latest adaptation, NOS4A2 has been widely praised by fans and critics alike. What is perhaps most interesting about the latter’s reception is just how much it differs from his original text. Perhaps even more unique, is Hill’s readiness to embrace these changes. “I didn’t think that there was anything that I loved about the book that didn’t make it into the show,” he admits. “When we first meet Vic in the book she’s 12-years-old and when we meet Vic in the TV show she’s about 18. By starting the story when she was 18, Jami O’Brien put us in a position to be able to use the same actress throughout the series. Ashleigh Cummings, the brilliant Australian actress who played Vic is at the right age, she’s in her early 20s so can convincingly play 18 and a 28-year-old mother of an eight-year-old. So for me that was a sensible, functional decision that I thought played pretty well. I actually think in the second season we do see Vic as a child. I think she made a good rational choice to not want two different actresses to play Vic.”

O’Brien also embellished some of the more supernatural aspects of the story, in particular elaborating on the ‘gifts’ that some characters have. “Certain beings can access their inscapes,” Joe enthuses. “They’re like landscapes of the mind, and they can pull these landscapes of the imagination into the real world. There’s some of that in the book but one of the pleasures of the TV show is that the show runner Jami O’Brien expanded on that, sort of looked at the book as a kind of compressed accordion and then pulled it wide open. So you have a lot of different characters who are strong ‘Creatives’ running around. It’s definitely one of the great pleasures of the show.”

One of the show’s characters that was most notably expanded was that of Maggie Leigh which, again, was a welcome addition to the author. “Maggie Leigh has a magical Scrabble bag. The bag is sort of bottomless and she can ask the universe a question then reach into the bag, pull out a bunch of letters, put them down and rearrange them and spell the answer to her question. With some limitations. She can’t ask it, for example, ‘Who killed this person?’ because the answer to this question would be a proper noun which is not allowed in Scrabble. So the Scrabble bag has to follow the rules of Scrabble even though it can answer anything else. It was great to see Maggie Leigh brought to life. She was performed by Jahkara Smith in her first screen role and she’s absolutely sizzling, so great in the part and it was great to see Maggie get her own story whereas in the book she’s more of a secondary character. I certainly felt that by the second season of the show it’s almost equally Maggie and Vic’s story, that they are together, Butch and Sundance. Ashleigh and Jahkara had such great energy together. It was Jami O’Brien’s instinct. You learn things as you go along, how to make a TV show and I think it was Jami O’Brien’s realisation as she went into the second season that what people liked best about the show was seeing Ashleigh and Jahkara together. Watching them support each other, challenge each other, be foils for each other. That was exciting, in the way we like seeing Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman spar off one another.”

nos4a2

While the novel of NOS4A2 spans around 20 years, the first season of the show only tackles Vic’s teen years, which would suggest that the show was always envisioned as having a two-season life-span. “I think it was possible to look at it and say, ‘We can do two seasons that tell the book – beginning, middle and end,” Hill concurs. “Give all these characters their due and give the readership what they want. But after that we may hit a point of diminishing returns’. If we go to a third or fourth season we might start to bleed our audience so let’s finish strong instead of finishing weak. Of course that makes sense in the new environment of TV. What you want to have is a show that people will return to the way that people return to favourite books. Whereas in the old days you just rode the horse until it died right underneath you. If you could squeeze another season out of it, you’d squeeze another season out of it. So I think that this is a more thoughtful way of making TV.”

In the years since Hill really made a name for himself with his acclaimed first novel Heart Shaped Box in 2007, it was clear to see that he was forging a well-earned path for himself as a credible horror author. “I collected my rejection letters, which is all part of the process, I gradually figured out how to write a short story then started writing some good ones. I kind of developed my own voice,” Hill explains. He would manage around a decade before word spread that his father was none-other than the master of literary horror, Stephen King. “I was a really insecure guy especially in my teens and 20s, which is why I wrote as Joe Hill rather than Joseph King because I didn’t want to get published because I had a famous dad,” Hill admits. “I needed to feel like when I sold a story, I sold it for the right reasons, because an editor was excited by it. By the time it became widely known who my dad was I’d had a book of short stories published by a small press in England, I had locked in the sale of my first novel Heart Shaped Box and I had built up some security and confidence.”

nos4a2

Interestingly, we note that, more so than any other work of Hill’s, his father’s DNA seems more apparent in NOS4A2, which perhaps speaks to Hill’s new found comfort in his own skin. “I had more freedom to celebrate my dad’s work,” Joe agrees. “I’m a big Stephen King fan! Writer’s talk about influence all the time. For me there’s really no influence that could ever come anywhere close to the influence of my father and mother. My ear for a good sentence is based on everything I’ve learned from my Mum and the way she would talk about what made a good sentence pop. My idea of what keeps people turning the pages was completely developed from reading Stephen King novels. So it’s inevitable that the work is going to have echoes in it of where I come from and who I am.”

It would seem that the appreciation for his father’s work runs both ways as while NOS4A2, a book about a soul vampire, mentions The True Knot (also soul vampires) in King’s The Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep, his Dad returned the favour by referencing Charlie Manx in Sleep. “There are two things you can do with that situation,” grins Hill. “You can run from it and try to hide that there’s any similarity – but that’s kind of cowardly, that doesn’t really have nerve. Another thing you can do is embrace it and underline it and make it seem more intentional instead of the totally random accident that it was.”

In fact world building is something that King is particularly known for amongst his ‘constant readers’, which is something that Hill seems keen to carry on. While the first true mention of King’s world came in NOS4A2, it would seem that there is an underlying element in his previous book, The Fireman. “There is this idea that in [King’s] Dark Tower stories, that the Tower is the lynchpin of a multiverse,” Hill explains. “That there are all these difference universes on different floors of the Tower. Every floor of the Tower looks into a different narrative universe. In some ways that’s how I thought of my fourth novel, The Fireman [also a pathogen story]. The Fireman narratively very consciously echoes a lot of what happens in The Stand. My idea of The Fireman is that it’s taking place on one level of the Tower one floor up from the events of The Stand. I’ve always kind of been a weak one for trying to Elmer’s Glue my universes to others. I’ve done a lot of work in comics and right now I’m writing a Locke and Key/Sandman crossover. So my comic book world is colliding with Neil Gaiman’s epic Sandman universe and that’s been a real delight. And to me, it feels like the two stories were always waiting for each other. They naturally fit together.”

While Hill’s novels continue to gather acclaim, it is perhaps his work as a comic book writer that has accelerated his notoriety thanks to Locke and Key and his own imprint at DC entitled Hill House Comics. Yet rather than a conscious move away from novel writing, Hill’s experience in the comic medium was actually intended as somewhat of a pallet-cleans. “I wrote these two really long novels, The Fireman and NOS4A2 back-to-back,” Joe explains. “And after that there was a book of novellas called Strange Weather and another book of short stories called Full Throttle. So I needed a little while to think, ‘What am I going to say now? What do I want to do as a novelist next?’ And I wasn’t really sure, so I wound up taking almost 18 months off to write comic books.”

At present, Hill is currently around 500 pages into his latest novel, intriguingly titled King Sorrow. Although that’s as much as we’re likely to find out at this point. “I’m so superstitious I don’t dare say anything about the plot,” Hill apologises. “Hopefully, I’ll finish it this year and it’ll be out next year. You never know. You don’t know until it’s done.” Until then, we get to revel in the world that Hill created, embellished perfectly by showrunner Jami O’Brien as we take an uncomfortable journey in the back Charlie Manx’s Rolls Royce Wraith with that foreboding number plate rattling at the front, NOS4A2.

NOS4A2 – Season One and Two is out now on DVD, read our review here.

Five Films to Check Out on Horror Channel This Week – 080321

horror 080321

Things are getting brighter outside but there are still plenty of darker things to watch on Horror Channel each week. Here are some of our favourites this week:

tall man

Tuesday March 9th, 9pm – The Tall Man (2012)

Martyrs director Pascal Laugier helms this brilliantly twisted thriller about a series of child abductions in a remote town. Jessica Biel (from 2003’s version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) plays a mother who goes to extremes to find her son.

nightbreed

Wednesday March 10th, 9pm Nightbreed (1990)

Clive Barker adapts his own novella Cabal and directs this wonderfully imaginative movie. David Cronenberg plays a doctor with a sinister side and there are plenty of misshapen characters in Midian, the mythical home of monsters.

green inferno

Friday March 12th, 10.50pm – The Green Inferno (2013)

Eli Roth heads to the Amazon in this homage to the cannibal films of the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. A group of student activists head to the jungle to try to prevent a company clearing the forest, and endangering the native tribes. The tribes, however, are not very grateful as they capture and proceed to eat the team.

starman

Saturday March 13th, 6.35pm – Starman (1984)

Jeff Bridges (King Kong) and Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) star in this often overlooked sci-fi romantic fantasy from the legendary John Carpenter. Bridges is an alien who embodies the form of Allen’s dead husband after crash landing near her home. Like the creature in Spielberg’s E.T., he just wants to go home.

ultraviolet

Saturday March 13th, 9pm – Ultraviolet (2006)

Kicking off a week of vampire films, which also includes 30 Days of Night (which follows at 10.45pm), Let Me In, and Fright Night. Milla Jovovich stars in this futurist take on the bloodsucker, where the vampires are people infected with a rare blood disease.

Tune into Horror Channel on Sky 317, Virgin 149, Freeview 68, Freesat 138.