Eli Roth’s Netflix orginal series Hemlock Grove isn’t afraid to take chances, either with violent and sexual material or with tone, which should mean that the audience will span over a wide range of ages.
“I think the 15-25 year olds are gonna love this show, I think they’re gonna eat it up because it’s all naked girls and blowjobs and cocaine and people being ripped in half and high school shenanigans, they can really identify with all that stuff!” laughs Aaron Douglas who plays the stern Sheriff Tom Sworn.
“And then you’ll have the older crowd that wants to tune in to see me and Dougray and Famke and get the more dramatic element and that sort of piece of the story. My mom will like this show for some reasons and then all the other stuff she’s going to fast forward or turn it off.
“I’m not looking forward to the day my mom watches this show and calls me screaming ‘Why did you do that?'”
“I think the big difference was the level of creative freedom that Netflix allowed for us to play in,” star Landon Laboiron, who plays werewolf Peter Rumancek, tells us. “Because they sort of wanted us to kind of push the limits of where the gore would go or where the sex would go or the drama would go. So they sort of threw caution to the wind and aided us along the way. It was kind of liberating to be able to work on a project that creatively exciting.”
“This is the way that television is going to be made and consumed,” adds Douglas. “And the opportunity to be on the ground floor …run don’t walk.
“I had to be a part of it because Netflix, this is going to be the norm. It’s coming, very soon it’s going to be the norm. And they’re at the forefront of it, and getting to be a part of it is a real treat. I’m very pleased. And hopefully we’ll be talking about this show in ten years the same way we’re talking about Battlestar, how it changed the way people are going to do and view horror, and mixed genre.”
“One of my favourite lines in the whole series actually, is when Landon starts to turn and Bill says ‘Oh I forgot my frisbee!'” laughs writer/producer Mark Verheiden. “That just epitomises the tone of this thing. As opposed to freaking out because this guy is shedding his skin and turning into a wolf in front of his eyes, that’s the show!
“For better or worse, that’s what we were trying to do.”
Hemlock Grove is available on Netflix now. You can read our review of the first episode here.
