It’s the weekend, fiends, and you know what that means: Welcome to The Week In Horror.
Titans on TV
DC Comics announced the original content that will lead their streaming service: the live-action Titans (which is already in production), and a new season of the fan favorite animated series Young Justice. These will be joined by a new Harley Quinn animated series.
Swamp Thing on TV
For us horror fans, though, the big news is James Wan (The Conjuring, Death Sentence, Aquaman) will be ushering in a new live action Swamp Thing series! In terms of live action adaptations, Swamp Thing has been the little train that could. It has been adapted into two films (from Wes Craven and Jim Wyrnowski) and three seasons of a TV series in the 1990s. Remember this was during a time when The Flash was the only other comic book hero with a TV series. With the exception of the corny and comedic Return of Swamp Thing, the character was generally treated with some seriousness, pulling from the more horror-ific roots of the comics and played 100% of the time by Dick Durock.
The poor writing and weak special effects of both films and TV series have kept it all from aging well, but there’s still a lot to enjoy. After The Conjuring films, I think Wan is an amazing choice for Swamp Thing. I really hope he makes the series not only scary as hell bu talso weird as fuck, like the 1980s comic series. I was probably getting the service from DC anyway, but this cements it. I want more Swamp Thing in my eyeballs!
Blumhouse on TV
Hulu and Blumhouse are teaming up for a feature-length, 12-episode TV series deal, with episode set around a major holiday. Into The Dark kicks off on October 1, a part of Huluween, and each subsequent episode will be available on the first of each month. Blumhouse has been having some great success lately and with their new Halloween movie dropping in October, it looks like they’ll be the studio to beat that month.
Aja + Raimi
Alexandre Aja’s (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes remake) new film, Crawl, will be produced by Sam Raimi for Paramount Pictures. And, uh, I love everything about that sentence. Bonus love for this being a woman-against-nature movie! A woman attempts to save her father during a category 5 hurricane. gets trapped in a flooding house, and has to fight off Florida’s meanest predators… alligators? poisonous spiders? poisonous snakes?? The article doesn’t say, but considering the fact that Florida has some of the nastiest beasties in the country, this film could be utterly horrifying!
Pet Semetary Comes Back to Life
Oh, and muth-fugging John Lithgow has been cast as Judd Crandell in the new Pet Semetary adaptation from the directors of Starry Eyes! Lithgow is always good, but really hasn’t been known as a horror guy, with the exception of Brian DePalma’s Raising Cane and The Twilight Zone Movie. I just keep getting more excited about this film; it’s my favorite Stephen King book, I loved the original film, but this new version is in very good hands.
I want to leave you with a little Swamp Thing…
