Exclusives
Katee Sackhoff from Space to Terror in ‘Growl’
The first rule of new werewolf screamer Growl, is you do not talk about Growl. Unless, that is, you’re the film’s star and you’re talking exclusively to us.
“Battlestar Galactica” alumni Katee Sackhoff gave Bloody Disgusting the first details on the gory horror flick and said “it’s like ‘An American Werewolf In Paris’ meets ‘Fight Club.’ ” You had us at werewolf.
Sackhoff, speaking from the Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Australia, said she plays Camden, the fight promoter for a traveling fight club who arrive in a ghost town tucked away in the Colorado Rockies. The only residents in town are the Maxilla family, who buy their way on to the fight card and soon reveal they’re packing more than a mean right hook. They’re werewolves and the fate of the fight club members varies between being eaten, killed or recruited to the family. Hell yes.
Sackhoff’s co-writer on her Versus comic, Sxy’leithan Essex, is the writer, director and production designer behind Growl and she said he was one of the main reasons she was attracted to the project.
“He’s a friend of mine, my writing partner and as soon as he told me about it I thought it sounded fantastic,” she said.
“I’m so grateful that I get to work with him.”
So far the only peek we’ve had at Growl is a teaser poster and a few official stills from pre-production, which look about as stylish and gory as Essex’s previous efforts Bled and A Darker Reality. Although the shoot isn’t set to start in Canada until July, Sackhoff said already she expects the film to be “amazing.”
“It’s very stylized, that’s the way it’s going to be shot and Scully (Sxy’leithan Essex) has an amazing eye for detail and a brilliant way of creating worlds, it’s so exciting.
“It’s also, like, the opposite of my last film, Haunting In Georgia; it’s massively, massively gory.
“I mean, violently gory.
“It’s like what horror films used to be in the 80s with the slasher films, very similar.
“(Hardcore) horror fans are going to love it.”
Fans of Sackhoff’s tough-girl characters like Starbuck from “Battlestar” will be disappointed to hear she won’t be getting down and dirty in any fight scenes in Growl.
“I’m like the only one who doesn’t have a fight in the whole thing,” she said.
Norway’s deepest fjord isn’t just unleashing a mythic monster in Kraken, but its monstrous deep sea parasites as well.
Watch our exclusive clip below, which introduces the skittering, skin-crawling aquatic menaces on the attack.
Samuel Goldwyn Films will release the Kraken in select theaters and on digital June 12.
Here’s the synopsis: “A marine biologist encounters several strange occurrences while researching a fjord, including the brutal deaths of two local teenagers. At the bottom of Norway’s deepest fjord rests a mythical monster as large as a mountain, with a myriad of arms ready to crush and devour anything they can grab.”
Pål Øie (The Tunnel) directs from a script by Vilde Eide, Kjersti Jelen Rasmussen, and Natasha Arthur.
Sara Khorami (Troll 2), Mikkel Bratt Silset, Øyvind Brandtzæg, Jenny Evensen, Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes, Jon Erik Myre, Hans Morten Hansen, Steinar Klouman Hallert, and Filip Bargee Ramberg star.
The behemoth beast from the deep is the latest kaiju-sized aquatic creature harboring a horde of bloodthirsty parasites, joining the likes of Cloverfield and Underwater. Naturally, the Kraken itself serves as the much bigger threat.
It’s also about time that the Kraken received its own feature; though Meg 2: The Trench featured a Kraken-like beast in its climax, the Kraken hasn’t been fully unleashed since Clash of the Titans.
Watch out for the Kraken in limited theaters and on VOD this Friday.