The Editing Room Burns ‘Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters’ At The Stake!

YOUNG JEREMY RENNER

So we don’t need that trail of breadcrumbs, then. Wait, did we even leave one?

YOUNG GEMMA ARTERTON

I don’t think so.

YOUNG JEREMY RENNER

Great. Hansel and Gretel has like six plot points, how did we go off the rails this quickly?

They FIND THE CANDY HOUSE, then get KIDNAPPED BY THE WITCH, then STAB and BURN and KILL her.

YOUNG JEREMY RENNER

Well, that was the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel. The end?

NICE TRY.

-from the abridged version of the script by Craig

Oh well.

Wow, we sure are embarrassed we promoted the red band trailer (back about six months ago). You have to admit, the trailer didn’t make it *look* like a stinker. Thank God we didn’t waste money to see it in 3D. Or 2D. Or DVD.

Click on the big red link below to give the abridged script a read. As usual, it’s hilarious (and in this case, DEFINITELY more entertaining than the actual flick)!

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters: The Abridged Script / The Editing Room.

‘Hemlock Grove’ renewed for shorter second season

It didn’t exactly set our world on fire, but they DID leave a few cliffhangers to address. I have faith in Chick Eglee as a show-runner. Also, ten episodes will hopefully make them tighten the ship a little… though when it comes to ‘being scared of things I never expected’, well, not quite as confident. Despite Eli Roth getting a little grandiose in his official statement here, we’ll watch it (unless they kill another pet cat)! We’re also going to re-think things if Nicotero-Berger aren’t involved with the practical effects

Ten F*cked-Up Things That Happen On Hemlock Grove (Semi-Spoiler-y)

So, we’ve watched all the Hemlock Groves episodes; in fact we were done by Saturday.*  It wasn’t memorable enough to want to write about immediately, so we’ve been making a list of ten “pros and cons” about the Netflix series (and it’ll show up) to help you decide if it’s worth watching if you’re on the fence.

These aren’t necessarily dirty due to sexual content (like the  10F-UTTH on Spartacus or the Sons of Anarchy list), but it is sort of… well… fucked-up. I left a few very nasty things out for spoiler-ish reasons and hey, if you do decide to watch it, you’ve got some twists and shockers to look forward to.

So here they are in no particular order and remember: hey, don’t look at us, we’re just documenting this!

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1. A character has their neck broken, and most of the upper body, including their entire chest area is skinless (we don’t see any farther down than that). They were flayed alive. We’re not sure if the neck-breaking (indicating they can’t feel anything from the neck down, meaning feeling no pain) happened before, after, or during the flaying. We do hear some SERIOUS agonized screaming coming from off camera when the attack starts, however.

2. Someone is buried alive (accidentally… at least that’s how it’s presented in the reveal).**

(Note: The following combo is in the transformation clip a ton of viewers have watched, and was shown at WonderCon, AND used heavily for PR by the show, so I’m not considering it a huge spoiler).

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How the hell does he transform back afterwards?

Two parter here: 3. During a grisly, painful-looking transformation into a wolf, a young man’s human eyes are pushed out from inside his skull and land on the (dirty) ground; his human teeth soon join the eyeballs.

4.-after the transformation is complete, the rags and scraps of discarded flesh left over of the young man (since he was torn apart from the inside out by the wolf literally tearing/pushing out of various areas of the body) lay steaming on the ground; the wolf  happily eats them up.

5. Early on in the series, a teenage girl (named “Brooke Bluebell”) who was viciously attacked by a wolf is discovered ripped in half. Only her nude top half is found, and she’s a shredded-up mess from midpoint-down, then everything else is missing.

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6. The girl who finds her body kisses her corpse on the mouth (she says she figured the whole thing was a prank and the bullies who are trying to scare her were hiding and watching. You’ll have to watch to find out more on that).

7. A body (just the upper half) is exhumed to further investigate cause of death (other than being separated from the lower half). This gets really really, ugly and messy –trust me, at least one person ends up vomiting all over.  KNB EFX is involved (doing the gore, not in the actual scene).

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Oh sure, it starts OUT innocently enough…

8. A gypsy girl (during a ritual) eats a rotting piece of flesh, then minutes later pukes her guts out (the flesh she ate, not her own actual guts, though that wouldn’t have surprised me by then). The camera shows that the vomit on the floor contains a live maggot.

9. During another tasteful gypsy ritual scene, a dead body is hung upside down from a tree by one leg, then decapitated (I’d have to watch the episode a second time to ascertain what exactly motivated this ritual, and if it actually achieved its purpose).

10. A young girl is revealed to have a sort of thick vestigial tail. Things get nasty when she decides on impulse to do some self-surgery to remove it.

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*Partially binge-watch, partially ‘try to get my mind off the fact that Spartacus had its series finale and there’s no new episode this Friday, and there won’t be any again’

**if you have watched Hemlock Grove (the entire series) and missed this moment, go to the Horror Boom Spoiler-A-Rama page and I’ll point out A. when it is and B. who–it’s not in-your-face ASAP or anything, almost missed it myself.

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Special Effects Deliver Gore Galore in Netflix Show ‘Hemlock Grove’ – Howard Berger of KNB EFX

KNB EFX – still the best, and out favorite, in practical gore effects (going back to Nicotero’s work in Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn…actually, before that). What’s “gore galore” to most might be a medium amount of gore for us (and we’re also far from ‘squeamish’), but we agree 100% with the “raw, visceral” part. Plus, the eyeballs were a great touch. Check out the cool concept art!

Don’t miss the KICK-ASS Hemlock Grove Featurette: Dissecting the Werewolf Transformation (Shock Till You Drop Exclusive)

Apologies; this was supposed to up on Saturday and we’re still trying to figure out why it didn’t publish, but hey! It’s here now! Click on the big red link below to see just how they did some of the awesome effects. It includes interviews with Eli Roth, Lily Taylor, and the werewolf himself, the easy-on-the-eyes (when he’s not transforming):

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Landon Liboiron as Peter Rumancek …plus lots more. Click on the big red link below to take a gander…

Exclusive Hemlock Grove Featurette: Dissecting the Werewolf Transformation | Shock Till You Drop.

 

Not sure this is the best werewolf transformation in horror as they claim that they aimed for, we’re still partial to The Howling. Guess you never do forget your first (especially if you saw it in a theater when you were probably, in retrospect, too young).  The Hemlock Grove transformation isn’t too shabby, however –especially if you’re sick of seeing the 2-second long (tops) morphs on True Blood.

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Peep This Review Of Hemlock Grove, Now Available From Netflix – NYTimes.com

So, until we get our review together, check out this review–from the NY Times, no less– of the first three episodes of the series (which incidentally ends with the “You got to be fucking kidding me” line after the first big werewolf transformation, which you can peep here on Horror Boom). Click on the big red link below to check it out–more to come!

‘Hemlock Grove,’ Online From Netflix – NYTimes.com.

 

Nicotero/Berger and KNB - still the best practical effects in horror flicks.

Nicotero/Berger and KNB – still the best practical effects in horror flicks.

We’ve seen all the episodes. Is it worth your time? We have an article coming up with pros and cons. Until then, though there’s this: we found out (only through the end credits of Hemlock Grove, not the IMDB) that KNB/Nicotero-Berger FX did the prosthetics and practical make-up effects for the transformations, and we DEFINITELY spotted their work throughout several other key episodes. Big, big selling point!

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Check Out Entertaining, Twisted New “Hemlock Grove” Red Band Trailer – NSFW, HD (Toothbrush Not Included)

“From director Eli Roth, developed by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman, with Famke Janssen (“X-Men”), Bill Skarsgård (“Simon & The Oaks”), Landon Liboiron (“Terra Nova“), Penelope Mitchell (“6 Plots”), Freya Tingley (“X”), and Dougray Scott (“Mission Impossible II“). Sexy, gripping, emotional and twisted, Hemlock Grove is unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.”

We don’t know about that, but after seeing this we’re sure going to give it a chance.

Well! Hemlock Grove suddenly looks a lot more watchable than the first trailer we saw several months ago, despite the always-entertaining Famke Janssen playing another fun femme fatale and the promise of “a small town filled with secrets”.

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Now we’re talking flesh covered in maggots (see horrific photo in gallery below),  a young guy enthusiastically doing blow off a glass coffee table, screaming characters covered in their own blood, intense sex scenes that look like they might be on the verge of turning animalistic, grisly werewolf transformation shots, a chick suddenly vomiting up a gallon or so of some unnatural-looking mealy white goop including a live maggot, a girl kissing the upper half of a female corpse (the bottom half is raggedly torn off and nowhere to be seen), Nazis exhuming a corpse*, two good-looking (and very alive this time) young women making out, even a couple of lines showing a sense of humor, including a nod to one of the most well-known lines from John Carpenter’s The Thing (you’ll know it when you see it).  Wow, House of Cards ( the most recent other Netflix Original Series) might have had the sex and some substance abuse, but only metaphorical back-stabbing and ripping to pieces. Check out the new HD trailer below- it’s much more flashy –and splashy– than the teaser, we’ll give it that! In case the descriptions above didn’t clue you in (pretty sure 99% of readers already got the gist) it’s definitely NSFW.

Though Eli Roth’s name is featured prominently in all the advertising, making it seem like he created all aspects of Hemlock Grove and was involved in every episode, IMDB shows that technically, his involvement is limited to executive-producing three episodes. Well, we’re more interested in his next project being Green Inferno than we would a series.

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Doesn’t mean it’s all bad, though. And if it is good, you can wolf down mainline all 13 episodes starting this Friday, April 19th on Netflix.

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Check out the gallery below for a few more screencaps…

*or apparently a corpse, they’re climbing down into a freshly dug-up grave and opening a coffin, looking very interested.

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Read Entire Graphic Novel Prequel to Horror Series Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy Online For Free! (Tor.com)

That’s right–it’s 37 pages, black and white, NSFW, titled as in the image above …and is another reason to get interested in the TV series. Click on the big red link below to read the entire prequel online – well worth your time! Can’t beat the price, either.

 

Read Exclusive Graphic Novel Prequel to New Horror Series Hemlock Grove by Brian McGreevy / Tor.com

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The entire 13-episode series will show up all at once on Netflix Friday, April 19th!

 

Eli Roth On Hemlock Grove’s Werewolf Transformation, Italian Horror Connection, and Mainstream Gore (Shock Till You Drop)

 I thought about the average viewers that have watched Twilight and seen the transformation of a shirtless guy walking by a tree and transforms.  Our idea of a transformation is Rick Baker and Rob Bottin.  So, we’ve got to do something modern that’s in the classic tradition.  It has to be a violent birth, I want it to eat its placenta after and Deran was into it.  It should shake off all of the blood and goo.  And that’s how we approached all of the kill scenes.

Eli Roth, on his vision for Hemlock Grove‘s werewolf transformations

Ryan Turek does a great interview (as usual) here with Eli Roth, as quoted above. We fucking agree!*   Yeah, that’s exactly what werewolf transformation scenes should look like. Click on the big red link below to read the Shock Till You Drop WonderCon interview with Roth, and get a little info on the Green Inferno cannibal flick!

WonderCon Interview: Eli Roth On Hemlock Grove’s Werewolf Transformation, Italian Horror Connection & Mainstream Gore / Shock Till You Drop.

Make up artist Rick Baker (middle) at the 2011...

Make up artist Rick Baker (middle) at the 2011 Saturn Awards (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*OK, so personally, Mrs. HB isn’t going to complain about Joe Manganiello on “True Blood stripping off his clothing until he’s just wearing a ‘modesty sock’, then quickly morphing into an actual wolf, but that’s because GOOD LORD what a fine, fine hunk of a man. OK, uh, anyway, that’s an exception for personal reasons…

 

Hemlock Grove Trailer: The Next American Horror Story? WE Fans Will Be The Judge Of THAT, Netflix! (Vulture.com)

This is the second piece on the Netflix Original series, coming this April 19, called Hemlock Grove (almost mis-typed that as “Hemlock Groove,” which actually would be a more interesting title) that has compared it to trusty ol’ American Horror Story. I think this isn’t the best move for the series,  since we American Horror Story fans have had a pretty high standard after watching the series. Also, watching a movie or a TV series that reminds you of a better, similar one (that you now wish you were watching instead, and sometimes just go back to the better one and watch it again) wears thin within minutes.  Movie fans of all genres know that’s the kiss of death.

We feel like making a list of all the things could wrong with it and another list of the things HG  has going for it, but we’ll reserve judgement till we find out a little more. The only plus signs we can come up with now are #1: Eli Roth and #2:  that you can binge and watch every episode in a row, back-to-back.

The link to the story and trailer is below (this is a Re-Press from Vulture.com – we write this part, on the link it’s all them).

Hemlock Grove Trailer: American Netflix Story — Vulture.

 

Here is the original PR blurb about the show:

Netflix Original Series  presents Hemlock Grove, from executive producer Eli Roth and based on Brian McGreevy’s novel of the same name. The series will be available for members to watch instantly and in its entirety beginning April 19, 2013.

All 13 episodes of the series, which stars Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgard, Landon Liboiron, Penelope Mitchell, Freya Tingley, and Dougray Scott will début concurrently in all territories that Netflix is available – U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Latin America, Brazil and Scandinavia.

The series revolves around the eccentric residents of a dilapidated former Pennsylvania steel town and the murder of 17-year-old Brooke Bluebell.  Through the investigation, the town’s seamier side is exposed, revealing that nothing is what it seems.

Hemlock Grove marks the first foray into television by internationally acclaimed horror master Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever), who also directed the first episode. The series is executive produced by Roth, McGreevy & Shipman, Mark Verheiden, Deran Sarafian, Eric Newman and Michael Connolly. The series was developed by Brian McGreevy & Lee Shipman. This one-hour murder mystery is produced by Gaumont International Television for Netflix.

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