Movies
[TV] “Tales From the Darkside” Pilot Ordered
After being announced way back in 2013, the CW has officially picked up its first two pilots of the 2015-16 cycle, handing orders to a reinvention of “Tales From the Darkside” and a project from “The Originals” and “Vampire Diaries” showrunner Julie Plec, says Variety.
“Tales From the Darkside” is a reboot of fantasy-thriller anthology series from the 1980s. Joe Hill (“Horns,” “Locke & Key”) wrote the pilot script and exec produces for CBS TV Studios with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Heather Kadin, as well as Mitch Galin and Jerry Golod.
“Cordon” revolves around an epidemic that breaks out in Atlanta, leaving some people stuck on the outside of a large city quarantine. It’s based on a Belgian series.
The bad news is that it’s a CW show, although I don’t wanna dog on it until I see “iZombie”. It’s also good to note that this is a pilot order and does not guarantee a series, although it would be wonderful to see a new anthology back on television… even if it is CW.
“Tales From The Darkside” was created by George A. Romero. The pilot for the series aired back in 1983, with it running from ’84-’88.
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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