A dark road - ‘Hairy Hands’ production update

As of June 15th the final draft of the script (assisted by David Bull - a collaborator with Aardman studios) will hopefully be signed off  and budget negotiated (by Producer Tom Atkinson)  to allow the 4th Penny Dreadful animation - ‘The Hairy Hands‘ - to finally commence shooting. Though at time of press… the actual title of the piece is, surprisingly, still in negotiation:

Director, Ashley Thorpe - “South West Screen’ have grand plans for the piece but they’re  worried that by naming the film ‘Hairy Hands‘ - so explicitly based and named on a local legend - it may alienate audiences outside the Devon region. They’ve been pitching for some title like ‘The Hand’ or ‘The Box’. Y’know, I’d rather call it ‘The Creeping Death’ … ha ha. I think they’re missing the point and the source of the appeal. The whole point of these films is to take these obscure tales and to reinvent them so that anyone can enjoy them, regardless of where they come from. The success of ‘Scayrecrow‘ in the U.S and Canada and the interest in ‘The Screaming Skull’ in Japan and Egypt has been proof of that! People have actually been attracted to these films because they’re obscure, they’re different but they’re simultaneously traditional - rich in English heritage and steeped in legend.”

“I guess with SWS they’re nervous possibly because generally new filmmakers tend to look East rather than to their roots and chase trends in a Nathan Barley sort of way… assimilating as much contemporary popular culture as they can to attract attention. This project has pretty much the opposite as its stance and has done since the beginning; its making people re-evaluate tradition, it’s going back to basics  with genuine enthusiasm - it has a streak of punk about it, with a collective ideology that is quite Python… and I guess perhaps that also makes them nervous. Well I’m still optimistic…hopefully fortune will reward the bold.”

Initially pitched to be completed for August 2009, the film will now more realistically be completed for a release date of Halloween ( a year to the day when ‘The Screaming Skull‘ was completed). Although still very much a Carrion film production this film has some marked differences apart from its funding. First and foremost, the film has a Producer independent from the funding source - in the shape of Tom Atkinson; Documentary producer (the award winning ‘Roy of the Rovers‘ recently shown in Cannes, E4 rave ‘The Pantomime‘ and an upcoming groundbreaking secret project). Tom is also the man behind the revolutionary ‘10 pound horror film’ project (see previous posting) and is a lifelong dedicate of the British Horror film. ( A full interview with Tom will follow shortly).

Similar thematically to ‘The Screaming Skull‘ - a film about a man on the run from himself,  ‘The Hairy Hands’ will also star Ed Berry as the lead character Cole. Ed’s first film role was playing the cowardly Fop in ‘Scayrecrow‘. Shortly after completion Ashley Thorpe embarked upon scripting ‘The Screaming Skull’ and though initially a location was the primary concern, a leading man was also a dilemma. It was Sue Tilbrook - who played Eleanor in ‘Scayrecrow‘ - who found the solution. “I was so impressed by Ed’s enthusiasm on ‘Skull’, he was really dedicated… Ed threw himself into it and that enthusiasm invigorated the set. So when it came to casting the lead for ‘Hairy Hands’, it seemed only natural that Ed should be the lead.”

Musical / Sound duties will be performed by constant composer Mick Grierson. Mick has created the soundtracks for all of the Carrion film animations thus far - including ‘Scayrecrow‘ and ‘The Screaming skull’. Mick Grierson had this to say - “The process of building a soundtrack has to start with a gut feeling. I need to be able to to feel what the atmosphere is going to be like for the audience before I can begin. This can come from looking at the script or storyboard, but it’s still a bit of a mystery right up until we start to lay the sound on the images. That’s why I love working with Ash, because this is exactly the freedom that he wants to give me, and I really look forward to those times when we first sit down to do the audio.”

“Where soundtracks are concerned, people tend to split the process in two. There’s Music and there’s Effects - the old fashioned M & E track. I’m not usually in favour of this approach.  I’m not sure what the difference is between the two, as music can have and can be an effect, just as much as sound effects can have thematic value. However, for this type of stuff, you really do need a ‘ tune’ - a starting theme.”

“With a project as big as this, I knew that I needed to get the theme early. I wanted to try some ideas out on Ash and see if any of them stuck. Also, this tends to be the way things work with Ash for some reason - we often have to have an opening first, and this has to be right.” (Editors note: Ashley has commented that the first thing that he always does upon embarking on a new project is to create a poster in the style of the piece, to evoke the mood  and also to illustrate the films look).

“Ash has great taste in music, so it’s good to get an idea of music that he’d like to use. He often brings a couple a key ideas to the table in terms of temp-track material, and we’ve been talking about what the right approach would be. So far, the Carrion Film soundtracks have all been orchestral compositions, but I had a feeling that something different was going to be required - something that had a driving theme but still retained horror overtones. Ash had a couple of great ideas for this. One of them was Hermann’s ‘Psycho’. The other was much more electronic, which I was pleased about, as this was a route we hadn’t gone down before for the Penny Dreadfuls, and I make a great deal of electronic music.”

“So, armed with these ideas, I started to imagine what the opening shots would feel like…a pinch of ‘Lost Highway’, a dash of ‘Fight Club’, industrial electronic beats, the thrashing of Hermann-esque strings against a John Barry guitar line, along side the ’secret sound of the Hairy Hands’. It’s still coming together, but I think I’m starting to see it now…” Mick Grierson

The film has been written and will be directed by Ashley Thorpe; director of ‘The Vampire, ‘Scayrecrow‘ and ‘The Screaming Skull’. The film was originally planned to be part of the portmanteau feature ‘Hell-Tor’. Scripting was actually under way on ‘Spring heel Jack’ when an offer for funding came through. “‘Spring heel Jack’ was just far too ambitious and complex to try and make under the time demands made by South West Screen, I never would have finished it, the finale is six months work on its own… So I looked to the material that I had that was in development and this just fit perfectly: It  had a limited cast, was set in one location and had a hook that intrigued me - a horror film set in a car, a mobile haunted house if you will.…the original idea has been compromised a little bit, in that the protagonist was going to be an everyman driven to theft because he was desperate, not that he was a ‘villain’.

It was a ‘credit crunch’ morality tale, showing what desperation will drive people to…y’know, as Burroughs said - the face of evil is always the face of total need…Due to the re-writes it’s now a bit more ‘EC Comics’, very ‘Tales from the Crypt’ -  which is not necessarily a bad thing. ” - Ashley Thorpe