Movies
Scott Derrickson Is Controlling ‘The Outer Limits’ Transmission!
There is nothing wrong with your computer screen. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. Scott Derrickson is controlling transmission…
Derrickson, who started off with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Day the Earth Still, Sinister and the forthcoming Deliver Us From Evil is blowing the fuck up.
Not only has Derrickson signed on to helm Doctor Strange, but THR reports that he’s reuniting with his Sinister co-scribe C. Robert Cargill to write the big-screen take of the cult classic 1960s sci-fi TV series The Outer Limits!
Derrickson is a longtime fan of the show and he and Cargill will actually focus on one episode in particular: “Demon With a Glass Hand” (watch it below), which was written by Ellison.
The duo will be tackling time travel, alien invasion and genetic manipulation in adapting the episode, which focused on a man with no memory beyond the last 10 days and a computerized hand who discovers he is from the future. The man is being hunted by an alien race who see him as key to their survival but he soon discovers a more complex and terrifying truth.
“Outer Limits” was an influential anthology sci-fi and horror show that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965. Like “The Twilight Zone,” the other famous anthology series from that era, the show had a well-known opening with a narrator telling viewers, “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission…”
MGM is behind the project, which will be produced by Mark Victor via his Mark Victor Production.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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