Eli Roth has certainly carved out a niche for himself in the producing world recently, but many have wondered when we’d see the HOSTEL helmer sit himself down in the director’s chair again. Turns out it will be soon, but, after a surprising revelation on Deadline.com, it sounds like Roth’s next directorial gig won’t be for a feature, but for a web series.
Netflix is finalizing a deal with Gaumont International Television for a 13-episode series order to “Hemlock Grove”, an hourlong thriller/horror series executive produced and directed by Roth.
“Hemlock Grove” is based on Brian McGreevy’s upcoming gothic horror novel of the same name, which will be released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 27. Deadline describes the story thusly: Set against the backdrop of our darkest myths, adolescent deceptions, ravenous relationships and rumors of a werewolf, the series re-imagines everything it means to be a monster as reflected in the struggle to be human.
Strike Entertainment’s Eric Newman, who co-produced THE LAST EXORCISM with Roth – as well as the DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE THING remakes – will executive produce “Hemlock Grove”. Author Brian McGreevy will also produce.
Here’s a more detailed synopsis of the novel, via Amazon: The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel mill. A manhunt ensues—though the authorities aren’t sure if it’s a man they should be looking for.
Some suspect an escapee from the White Tower, a foreboding biotech facility owned by the Godfrey family—their personal fortune and the local economy having moved on from Pittsburgh steel—where some suspect that biological experiments of the most unethical kind take place. Others turn to Peter Rumancek, a Gypsy trailer-trash kid who has told impressionable highschool classmates that he’s a werewolf. Or perhaps it’s Roman, the son of the late J. R. Godfrey, who rules the adolescent social scene with the casual arrogance of a cold-blooded aristocrat, his superior status unquestioned despite his decidedly freakish sister, Shelley, whose monstrous medical conditions belie a sweet intelligence, and his otherworldly, sexy control freak of a mother, Olivia. As the crime goes unsolved and the police seem more and more willing to believe any outlandish rumor, Peter and Roman decide the only way to save their own skins is to find the killer themselves. Along the way they uncover local secrets and designs that are much bigger than some small-town murder.
Not start date has been revealed, so this one is still a while off. It seems like Netflix is becoming a series entity in the original programming game, with this, a new season of “Arrested Development” (which will be a must), the David Fincher/Kevin Spacey drama “House Of Cards”, and the Jenji Kohan comedy “Orange Is The New Black”.