Exclusives
Munroe on ‘Dead of Night’ Trilogy and Monsters!
This week is all Kevin Munroe as the director revealed to Bloody-Disgusting that he’s not only prepping Dead of Night, the feature film adaptation to Dylan Dog, but he’ll also be directing WAR MONKEYS and EL ZOMBO. We caught up with the director who talked quite a bit about all three projects. Beyond the break you can read what he has to say about the DEAD OF NIGHT trilogy!
With Brandon Routh attached to star, Munroe says he hopes to begin pre-production as early as next month.
“With DEAD OF NIGHT… if all goes well we’re gonna be closing financing very soon and we’re gonna start prep December January, we’ll be in New Orleans. And then filming late January, February.”
In the adaptation, Dylan Dog is forced back into his nightmare investigations after he is approached by a woman who claims to have seen her father brutally murdered by a mysterious creature. With his street smart, his gun and a set of paranormal weapons, Dylan attempts to restore order both above and below ground.
Originally the plan was to move the film from London to New York, now they’ll be heading to Louisiana.
“The original script was set in New York, and eventually the location changed, someone drew Louisiana on the desk. And looking at New Orleans, we’re like “Holy crap that will be a lot of fun”. The original source material was London, with a lot of moors and fog… and New Orleans is perfect for that! You can’t sell that in New York, but you can in New Orleans. So in a strange way it’s actually being more true to the source material.”
Munroe reveals to B-D what type of monsters he’ll be going up against.
“Right now he’s got vampires, and a couple different instances of zombies,” Munroe reveals to Bloody-Disgusting. “There are werewolf families in there as well. Plus other stuff that is hinted at. He goes up against everything; there’s ghosts, and aliens, and curses, and banshees and everything… So right now we’re just trying to do sort of the first chapter, and then sequels we’ll get to see a bit more.”
Sequels? Sounds like DEAD OF NIGHT will becoming a potential franchise…
“I would love to [make a trilogy]. Right now they are just treating it as one film at a time. And I’m happy to, because at the end of the day this movie stands alone. But I can’t see why, if this film is successful, why there can’t be more. The comic is so deep and there are so many different stories to tell. And the character is so great; it’s not like he’s just some ass-kicker who shows up and that’s the level of his characterization. He’s more than just an angry investigator; there are a lot of layers to him.”
Although it’s too soon to talk about it, Munroe teases what type of main villain Dylan will be going up against.
“Basically he goes up against… sort of bad guys that come in all forms. Every family has their good and bad members.” He continues, “There are bad zombies, bad vampires, bad werewolves. The movie is all about seeing who the bad guys from the warriors. There’s a storyline where Dylan has to go investigate, and he doesn’t know who to trust, who is after him. Everybody’s sort of a suspect.”
The most exciting news is that there will be a mix of puppets, CG and other variations to bring the monsters the life.
“DEAD OF NIGHT is] entirely prosthetic, the biggest CGI thing we have is probably going to be wire removal. And the monsters will be very specific, the vampires will move entirely different than the werewolves. Everything has a really cool feel to it.”
A gnarly infection threatens to claw its way out of a moving camper in the first trailer for Shudder’s claustrophobic Hellcat.
The feature debut of writer/editor/director Brock Bodell, who previously edited the Fantasia title Ultrasound, makes its debut on Shudder on August 14.
In Hellcat, “Lena wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She’s warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she’ll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. As the pain sets in and reality begins to fray, who should really be afraid?”
Dakota Gorman (Natural Disasters) leads the cast that also includes Todd Terry (“Breaking Bad”), Liz Atwater (The Other People), Jordan Mullins (The Bikeriders), and James Austin Johnson (“Saturday Night Live”) in a voice role. Bodell also produces alongside Andrew Duensing and Nate Eggert.
Hellcat made its world premiere last summer at Fantasia. I wrote in my review, “Hellcat is a bit of a Trojan horror that defies easy classification, by design. Bodell’s sneaky debut feature is occasionally too sparse in its worldbuilding in its bid to preserve the mystery, but not enough to detract from the thrilling road thriller that transforms into a completely left-field type of horror we don’t get nearly enough of. The stripped-down tribute to a classic horror staple catches you off guard in more ways than one, marking Bodell as one to watch.”
In other words, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to Hellcat‘s simple infection setup, delivering plenty of surprises along its bumpy road of horrors.
Check out the trailer and poster below and add Hellcat to your watchlists asap.
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