Dead Channel
Compiled By Zuul - November 2007
|
|
True Blood -
First perhaps the juiciest announcement regarding a Vampire TV series yet: Home Box Office (HBO), makers of some the greatest TV shows ever (Sopranos, Carnivale, Six Feet Under, Deadwood) have announced that they are making a vampire TV Series called “True Blood”.
Anyone who’s seen any of the above HBO shows will know that they can and do spend lavishly to create quality TV up to (and beyond) the standard of a lot of movies – so we have very high hopes this could be the Vampire series everyone has always wanted.
True Blood is based on the Southern Vampire series of books by Charlaine Harris, and is being adapted by Alan Ball who was responsible for Six Feet Under, and the series stars Anna Paquin who you may have seen recently in “Trick R Treat”.
The twist here is that the series is set in a world where vampires have “come out of the coffin” and are an accepted fact of life (or death) everyone is aware of - with the Vampires surviving on socially acceptable Japanese manufactured synthetic blood. Filming now (Autumn 2007) look for this sometime in 2008.
|
|
Preacher -
A quick update on this other HBO TV series in development featuring vampires (among other fantastical creatures including angels, god, the devil and an immortal gunslinger).
|
|
|
Widely regarded as one of the best (and most blasphemous) comics of all time, Preacher is attracting some heavyweight talent – rumor has it that Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Planet Terror) has signed up to direct the pilot, with Brian De Palma and David Cronenberg signing up to direct other episodes – if true, then this could be superb. Question is, who will they get to play arseface? (Above)
|
|
Blood Ties -
Now for something that’s already out there (certainly on the net if you fancy a quick torrent). Blood Ties is a TV series based on the novels by Tanya Huff, this show revolves around PI Vicki Nelson an ex-detective with the Metropolitan Toronto Police.
She was losing her sight, but quit the force rather than accept a desk job. However, her very last case involves vampires and the supernatural. She decides to team up with a vampire named Henry to battle the forces of evil both normal and paranormal.
|
|
|
You can find lots of info on this series at BloodTiesTV.com the official web site for the show.
|
|
Sweeney Todd -
Yes, the world’s favourite goth director (Tim Burton) returns with his muse, Captain Jack himself (lots of Captain Jack’s at WGW interestingly), to give you the Demon Barber Of Fleet St., complete with cod Dick Van Dyke accent (Strike A light!) and snaggle-toothed neighbour Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett the pie maker.
|
|
|
Victorian England is the setting for this harrowing melodrama. Benjamin Barker is living a simple life as a barber with his wife Lucy and his daughter Joanna when the lust of a judge throws all of their lives into chaos.
The judge has Benjamin Barker deported to Australia, and it is many years later that he returns to England, under the pseudonym Sweeney Todd with revenge on his heart. He wishes to reclaim his family and punish the judge and the society who destroyed it. With the help of Mrs. Lovett, a pie shop owner who had known Sweeney and his family all of those years ago, Sweeney goes about seeking vengeance and reaping the benefits of that bloody journey.
|
|
|
The film is adapted from the broadway play, so it is in fact a musical with all the principals bravely lending their own attempts at a limey accent (cock-er-nee loike). Visit SweenetToddMovie.com for the trailer and judge for yourself – released in the UK in January 2008.
|
|
I Am Legend -
Finally, it looks like someone has made a decent version of this post-apocalyptic vision. A man-made virus wipes out the population of New York City, leaving Robert Neville (Will Smith) the last human survivor in the city and possibly the world.
|
|
|
Neville lives alone for three years, attempting to contact and find other possible survivors. He is watched by the Infected, mutant victims of the plague. Neville works to find a way to create a cure using his own immune blood, but he finds himself outnumbered by the Infected and running out of time.
|
|
|
Yet another film (after 28 Days/Weeks later) that is studiously avoiding the horror tag by referring to the “Infected” – but anyone who’s read the book will know that the symptoms are extremely similar to vampirism (aversion to garlic, mirrors, crosses, craving of fresh blood, and resistance to bullets but vulnerability to stakes and sunlight) – it’ll be interesting to see how closely they stick to the book with these elements – the Charlton Heston version (“The Omega Man”) removed them altogether. Certainly the shots of an abandoned New York look amazing from the trailer.
|
|
“It's all gone away,
I cannot believe it,
Well I am the one a god with a gun,
I Am Legend!”
-- Rob Zomie “I Am Legend”
Trailers and more here.
|
