At the MipTV press conference, Cabin Fever director Eli Roth showed some clips of his new 13-episode Netflix series Hemlock Grove, as well as giving some of his thoughts on horror.
“When I saw American Werewolf in London, there was nothing that freaked me out more than that” he told the audience after airing a clip from the show of a werewolf transformation. “That howling visceral transformation… for this, we wanted something that would be beautiful and horrific, but which would f*ck up an entire generation.”
Gore is certainly key to the series based on the two trailers released and Roth, who made a name for himself with ‘torture porn’ movies like Hostel, is very much aware of that, “you can see that people want their horror horrific. With The Walking Dead getting 12.5 million viewers, Evil Dead just opened at number one in the box office… people want stories like this”. He continued, “they want their violence in Game of Thrones. What you’re seeing is a real shift… you wanna see the sex and you wanna see the killing and the violence. You want the murder to be scary and horrible!”
Roth also believes that the show has a global market, “The horror fans are there globally and the appetite is so strong for this type of material… I don’t just want this to be a hit on Netflix in America. I want the show to become a global phenomenon, because horror is one of the few areas where you can really appeal to a worldwide audience.”
So far, Netflix have only commissioned 13 episodes but Roth is already planning the second season which will unlock more of Hemlock Grove, “I can think of endless horrible things to do to people! It’s like the White Tower (a focal point of the first season) becomes my brain… In season two you’re gonna figure out how the eyes grow back. I’ve already planned that.”
Hemlock Grove will have all 13 episodes released to Netflix on 19th April. The show stars Famke Janssen (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters), Penelope Mitchell (6 Plots), Freya Tingley (X: Night of Vengance), Lili Taylor (High Fidelity), Landon Liboiron (Altitude) and Dougary Scott (Mission: Impossible II).