The cast and producers of Netflix's Hemlock Grove were on hand at WonderCon to give an excited crowd the inside scoop on the upcoming horror-thriller and things got bloody and fun by the panel's end. Things got started with a discussion about why it took producer Eli Roth so long to jump into the world of television.
"I can't just kill everybody every week," executive producer Eli Roth said. He stressed that networks had been asking for him to create a television series. "As the medium evolved, shows like Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Waling Dead changed the rules and suddenly horror became a real possibility."
"We've been talking about this as a TV series since grad school and he was working on the first draft," executive producer said of Brain McGreevy's novel. "The problem was the expansion of the story, so there'll be lots of surprises for fans of the novel. One really, really big surprise."
The cast, which includes Famke Janssen, Dougray Scott, Bill Skarsgård, Landon Liboiron, Penelope Mitchell, Freya Tingley, Aaron Douglas and Kandyse McClure told the audience that the story is built on the characters who populate the town.
"When things start spiraling out of control in his sleepy little town, he's a man that's attempting to hold onto a thousand strings at once. And he's also trying to raise two young daughters," said Battlestar Galatica alum Aaron Douglas of his small-town sheriff character.
The cast then took turns describing their characters and how they fit into the small community of Hemlock Grove. The story, which revolves around murder, deception and werewolves, involves a complex narrative web that quickly intertwines all the characters. Like any good small-town focuses story, nearly all the characters have secrets they wish to keep buried, so to speak.
"The story and the characters all have an incredibly interesting arc and that's what makes the show and the novel so great. It makes for incredible television," said Dougray Scott of the appeal of the show. Repeatedly, the format of the show was referred to as one that is open to "binge watching" by several of the panel attendees. All 13 episodes will be available on the first day of release, and the panel laughed saying that the future of television was marathon viewing shows rather than waiting from week to week.
The producers than stressed how great the experience of working with Netflix was. Hemlock Grove was approached as a 13-hour movie without boundaries such as content and language like one would find on regular, network shows. The cast did receive the scripts on a weekly basis, despite the bulk of them being ready early on.
"The experience was very similar to film any other show, other than the Netflix doesn't restrict anything. Length, structure, all of it was very open," said Aaron Douglas. He pointed out that, compared to other networks, Netflix was very hands off.
"It's not that traditional kind of television making," Famke Janssen chimed in.
"I feel very blessed, how could I not feel very blessed," Brian McGreevy said of seeing his novel come to life as a series. He noted that it was very surreal seeing a story that had existed solely inside his head for so long.
Eli Roth told the crowd that he wanted to ground the supernatural horror of the series, especially when it came to the werewolf and its transformation. "I wanted it to be violent and like a birth. I wanted every teenager who saw Twilight with a shirtless boy walking behind a tree and coming out a werewolf to be horrified now imagining what happened behind that tree. It needed to be visceral."
The audience was then treated to a scene of bloody and graphic werewolf transformation -- as seen below -- which featured tearing skin, lots of blood and eyes literally popping out of heads. The scene closed with a scene of the wolf beginning to eat its own, discarded flesh.
"We really wanted the wolf to be born and then eat its own placenta," Roth laughed. "We approached it, like, a person with epilepsy. It's painful and violent. It's a natural thing, but a horrific one."
"It's like a home birth, a sick gorgeous thing," said producer Lee Shipman.
"It was very important to understand that Roman was not horrified by this, he thought it was something so special," Landon Liboiron said of his character, who was featured in the scene watching the werewolf transformation.
"If you thought that was horrific, you should see when he turns back into a human," Bill Skarsgård laughed.
Hemlock Grove is set to launch April 19th on Netflix.
Benjamin is a writer and storyteller. He owns many leather-bound books and his office smells of rich mahogany. Follow Benjamin on Twitter @616Earth, or find him on IGN.
Source : ign[dot]com
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