It was just this past December that Eli Roth revealed plans to jump head first into telly, setting up horror adaptation Hemlock Grove with Netflix. Since then, he and co-producer Eric Newman have been hunting for cast members, tracking down Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgard.
Hemlock Grove takes place in the titular small town, where the badly mangled body of a young girl shows up in the shadow of the disused Godfrey steel mill. Almost immediately, the theories start to bubble to the surface, with fingers pointed at the White Tower, a biotech facility owned by the wealthy, mysterious Godfrey family. Arrogant Godfrey scion Roman (Skarsgard) is considered a prime suspect, along with Peter, a 17-year-old kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who has been telling his schoolmates he’s a werewolf. Janssen, meanwhile, will play Olivia, the beautiful but seemingly dangerous and controlling grand dame of the town.
As the rumours begin to mount, Roman and Peter decide to team up and find the killer themselves, which opens up a whole new can of dangerous truths and secrets.
Roth has been working on adapting Brian McGreevy’s eponymous novel alongside the writer. He seems excited at the chance to haunt the goggle box. “I’ve been waiting for years to dive into television, and Eric Newman and I founded Arcade to do elevated genre projects exactly like Hemlock Grove. Brian McGreevy’s novel blew me away, and the material lends itself perfectly to long format storytelling. Hemlock Grove is smart, dark, complex, and at times terrifying. “What’s most exciting to me is creating the series for Netflix, which as a feature filmmaker is like telling a story in a new medium. Netflix as a platform is the perfect hybrid of cinema, television, and social networking, with the creative freedom to go as dark as the story needs.”
And if you were wondering, yes, to paraphrase Yoda, there is another Skarsgard. Bill is Stellan’s son and Alexander’s brother. In fact, there are several more of them lurking, waiting to pounce onto the world acting stage…