Exclusives
Breck Eisner Talks Comic Adaptation ‘Blood of the Innocent’
In a chat with director Breck Eisner about the upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of The Crazies, B-D got a little more info from him on his next project, an adaptation of the Mark Wheatley Dracula-meets-Jack the Ripper comic book Blood of the Innocent, which had a four-issue run in 1985. He learned about the obscure comic book series from management/production company Circle of Confusion, who brought Wheatley, Eisner and writer Bill Marsilii together to collaborate on the project. Read on for more.
“‘Blood of the Innocent’ is a pitch I developed with Bill Marsilii, it’s a project we’re just going out with now, and it’s just at pitch stage” said Eisner. “But we’re gonna set it up and Marsilii will write the draft, and it’s an idea I’m just obsessed with it, I love it. So for the next horror-ish movie, that would be the next one that I would do. But you know, I say horror-ish because I love to combine genres in movies. I think that `The Crazies’ had a bit of Frankenstonian genre combinations, I really enjoy that. So that will be horror, and it will also be action, and it will kind of mystery kind of all rolled up into one.”
Eisner spoke excitedly about the project, which will be his next horror-adjacent film after vacating ‘Creature from the Black Lagoon’ (which fell apart following the writer’s strike) and turning down an offer to direct Cronenberg remake ‘The Brood’ (“I decided that’s not the one for me,” said the director): “It’s a really interesting world…they brought Dracula and Jack the Ripper together into one space. It had some really great ideas in it that we really expanded on to make this awesome, really fantastic pitch.”
Eisner is hoping that the pitch, based off a 25-page outline put together by Eisner and Marsilii, will soon be set up at a studio, at which time Marsilii can begin work on the full-length screenplay: “I’ve been so busy with the other stuff I’m doing that I really need to get out and pitch it and get it set up. But I’m hoping that by the end of summer we’ll have a script.“
A gnarly infection threatens to claw its way out of a moving camper in the first trailer for Shudder’s claustrophobic Hellcat.
The feature debut of writer/editor/director Brock Bodell, who previously edited the Fantasia title Ultrasound, makes its debut on Shudder on August 14.
In Hellcat, “Lena wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She’s warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she’ll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. As the pain sets in and reality begins to fray, who should really be afraid?”
Dakota Gorman (Natural Disasters) leads the cast that also includes Todd Terry (“Breaking Bad”), Liz Atwater (The Other People), Jordan Mullins (The Bikeriders), and James Austin Johnson (“Saturday Night Live”) in a voice role. Bodell also produces alongside Andrew Duensing and Nate Eggert.
Hellcat made its world premiere last summer at Fantasia. I wrote in my review, “Hellcat is a bit of a Trojan horror that defies easy classification, by design. Bodell’s sneaky debut feature is occasionally too sparse in its worldbuilding in its bid to preserve the mystery, but not enough to detract from the thrilling road thriller that transforms into a completely left-field type of horror we don’t get nearly enough of. The stripped-down tribute to a classic horror staple catches you off guard in more ways than one, marking Bodell as one to watch.”
In other words, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to Hellcat‘s simple infection setup, delivering plenty of surprises along its bumpy road of horrors.
Check out the trailer and poster below and add Hellcat to your watchlists asap.
You must be logged in to post a comment.