Exclusives
Gierasch’s Twisted ‘Fertile Ground’ has Atmosphere, Breasts and Blood
Bloody Disgusting’s Jeff Otto caught up with Night of the Demons and Autopsy director Adam Gierasch to chat about his latest horror endeavor, Fertile Ground, which will play in this coming October’s “After Dark Originals”. Inside you can read the interview where Gierasch promises that Ground carries atmosphere, breasts and blood!
In the film, Emily and Nate Weaver leave the city for the rural comfort of Nate’s ancestral home in New Hampshire. There, isolated and haunted by inexplicable noises and horrifying visions, Emily discovers she’s pregnant while Nate is possessed by the homicidal spirit of his forbearers. In a house haunted by past victims, Emily learns that she’s the latest target in a murderous tradition.
“If Roman Polanski made a movie for Lifetime Channel, it would be FERTILE GROUND,” is writer/director Adam Gierasch’s uniquely vivid description of his new film for After Dark, part of their 8-part ORIGINALS series.
“It’s old school [and] weird,” Gierasch tells BD during our exclusive interview. “Is it a ghost story or is it not? [It’s a] psychological drama. It’s very different than the other After Dark films. We don’t have monsters in it. It’s got breasts, and that’s a good thing. We have an amazing cast with Gale Harold, who starred in the show QUEER AS FOLK and Leisha Hailey, who starred in THE L WORD.”
Gierasch says GROUND builds to its scares and big moments rather than being in-your-face with them. “It’s a gorgeous movie. It takes place all in this beautiful mansion in this giant cornfield. It just looks very Americana. It’s something I’ve never done before because it relies so much more on the drama than the big scares. It’s a very adult movie. It’s one of those things where, at the end, you’re supposed to be tense and almost sick to your stomach. It’s very emotionally harrowing with some good horror jumps in it.”
With that being said, the director also promises GROUND will feature plenty of moments design to make your skin crawl. “A woman has a terrible miscarriage in the first five minutes of the movie, so there’s just blood pouring between her legs and all over the floor. It’s really hard to watch. There’s also a ghost who looks like she’s had a miscarriage too. And you see pretty much everything. Wait until the end. There’s ghosts. It gets bloody. I’ll leave it at that.“
A bedtime lullaby soothes an unsettling newborn in our exclusive clip from Nightborn, from Hatching filmmaker Hanna Bergholm.
The dark fable makes its debut on Shudder on July 31.
Seidi Haarla (Compartment No. 6) and Rupert Grint (Knock at the Cabin, “Servant”) star as new parents in Nightborn, and this exclusive clip highlights mom’s harrowing transition into motherhood.
In Nightborn, “With dreams of starting a perfect family, Saga and her British husband Jon move to the isolated house where she spent much of her childhood, deep in the Finnish forest. But as soon as their baby is born, despite the reassurance of all around her, Saga knows there’s something terribly wrong with her son. As their marriage starts to crack, Jon struggles to support his wife, but only Saga suspects the terrible truth about her newborn.”
Pamela Tola, Pirkko Saisio, Rebecca Lacey and John Thomson also star.
Bergholm teased of her maternal horror movie, “In Nordic countries, there’s a long-standing mythology of trolls living in the forests. In ancient times, people truly believed that trolls inhabited the woods and had a kind of control over nature. And in Nightborn, the forest reflects Saga’s emotions and the animalistic, primitive physical side of humankind.”
“Hanna Bergholm’s audacious sophomore follow up to Hatching delivers tension and shocking moments surrounding parenthood and self discovery — with a touch of humor,” said Emily Gotto, senior vice president of acquisitions and production at Shudder. “We are thrilled to share Nightborn with audiences.”