Editorials
‘Solace’: Screenwriter Ted Griffin Clears Up the Confusion About the Almost-Sequel to ‘Se7en’ [Larval Ink]
Welcome to Larval Ink, a recurring feature which will take a look at the earliest iterations of certain genre films as they existed in their early scripting stage, long before the transformation which significantly changed the original vision into its final form for the silver screen. Here, we will be chatting with the writers of these initial eggs to gain their unique insights into their screenplays and the finished films they would eventually metamorphose into, and all the painful phases in between.
With this installment, we’ll be delving into Solace, a screenplay which originated in the mid-90s and was eventually produced as the 2015 film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Abbie Cornish and Colin Farrell. Penned by Sean Bailey (Push, Nevada) and Ted Griffin (Ocean’s 11, Matchstick Men), Solace may seem an unusual fit for this column, as it was eventually realized in a pretty faithful manner onscreen. However, during the early aughts, it was briefly developed as the sequel to David Fincher’s Se7en, rumored to be retitled as Ei8ht.
On hand to discuss the process of changing the original screenplay into a sequel to another film is Mr. Griffin, who was kind enough to discuss the screenplay’s origins, dispel a few erroneous rumors, and provide his ultimate thoughts on the film it eventually became.
“The initial idea of a clairvoyant brought in to catch a serial killer was Sean Bailey’s,” Mr. Griffin reveals, discussing the project’s genesis. “He wrote a first draft, then together we rewrote it considerably. This was way back in 1996, so Se7en had just come out and was (and is) a conspicuous influence on the script. Our draft kicked around a bit, optioned here and there before it landed with New Line for a spell in 2001.”
The film that was ultimately produced over a decade later under the screenplay’s original title and released by Lionsgate Premiere concerned Joe Merriwether (Morgan), an FBI agent saddled with solving a series of bizarre serial murders which find the killer’s victims having been painlessly dispatched with a clean puncture into their medulla oblongata. Partnered with Agent Katherine Cowles (Cornish) and failing to find any usable leads, Merriwether turns to longtime friend John Clancy (Hopkins), a reclusive psychic still reeling from losing his daughter to leukemia. After initially refusing to help, Clancy throws himself into the case when another murder is carried out, using his abilities to suss out a surprising motive for the killer: the victims have all been terminally ill, with the killer seeing his deeds as mercy killings meant to save his prey from their eventual suffering.
Anthony Hopkins as John Clancy in ‘Solace’ (2015)
A cat-and-mouse game ensues between Clancy and the killer, revealed to be Charles Ambrose (Farrell), who employs far more powerful psychic abilities to both choose his victims and stay one step ahead of the police. When a setup Ambrose orchestrated initiates a shootout with another murderer that claims Merriwether’s life, Clancy and Cowles carry on the investigation and discover Ambrose’s true endgame: for Clancy to carry on his work once he’s gone. A climactic chase ensues, culminating in a final showdown aboard a subway train which sees Ambrose, revealed to have a terminal illness himself, gunned down by Clancy to save Cowles’ life.
The film ends with Clancy reuniting with his estranged wife, just before a flashback provides a shocking revelation: Clancy had euthanized his cancer-afflicted daughter to end her suffering, effectively committing a mercy killing not unlike all of Ambrose’s murders. The movie concludes on an ambiguous note, leaving audiences to wonder if Clancy might indeed pick up Ambrose’s work in his stead.
Before the film was eventually realized in 2015, there was the brief but highly-discussed possibility that the screenplay was going to be retooled as a continuation of the Andrew Kevin Walker-penned Se7en. Rumors abounded in the early aughts that Morgan Freeman was meant to reprise his character of Detective Lieutenant William Somerset from that 1995 film, and that he may have displayed psychic abilities in the follow-up. “In truth, the notion of turning Solace into a Se7en sequel was pretty short-lived,” Mr. Griffin notes. “The concept was to change ‘Merriwether’ (ultimately played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) into ‘Somerset’ (Morgan Freeman’s character [from Se7en]).” This revelation corrects the long-held assumption that Freeman’s character would have suddenly developed psychic powers for the sequel.
Mr. Griffin continues: “I think Sean and I had one meeting with the New Line execs where we discussed how to pitch it to Morgan Freeman, but that meeting never came about. There was a rumor that David Fincher had called Freeman and talked him out of pursuing it, but David has never confirmed or denied that to me. I think Sean and I felt at the time that the movie would at the very least get critically lambasted if it was presented as a sequel to Se7en, but it was New Line’s dime.
Morgan Freeman as William Somerset in ‘Se7en’ (1995)
“I parted ways with the project around then – early 2002, I think. There were a number of directors attached and unattached over the years – Tarsem [Singh], Paul Verhoeven, Gary Fleder, if memory serves. I know Sean Bailey did further rewriting when Bruce Willis was attached as Clancy. Later, Jamie Vanderbilt (Truth, Zodiac) did a draft, and Peter Morgan (The Crown) came on to write a scene or two at Tony Hopkins’ request.”
So did the final film accurately represent the original vision from that early screenplay? “It’s now twenty-five years since I co-wrote, so it’s hard to remember exactly what the original vision was anymore. And, to be perfectly honest, I’ve only seen the movie once, in an unfinished form, on an editing bay.”
In closing out our discussion of this particular project, Mr. Griffin offers his thoughts on the potential retitling of Solace to Ei8ht, had it become a Se7en sequel: “This is the first I’ve ever heard of that, so I presume that’s just a rumor.”
Very special thanks to Ted Griffin for his time and insights.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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