For horror fans, it feels like television is entering a post-Golden Age, where networks aren’t afraid to go for viewers in visceral and frightening ways, rather than making them laugh or follow criminal investigations. FX has the third season of American Horror Story coming this fall. The Walking Dead has achieved record ratings for AMC. A&E and NBC both reinterpreted classic characters for their respective prequel series Bates Motel- which already secured a second season - and Hannibal, which is slowly building itself into a success. And Eli Roth’s Hemlock Grove premieres on Netflix this Friday. These are frightening times indeed.
Alcon Entertainment Group’s TV branch, Alcon Television Group, will take on a small screen adaptation of comic mastermind Terry Moore’s horror mystery series Rachel Rising. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Moore will executive produce the series, along with Alcon and longtime producer Lloyd Levin, who worked on the Watchmen and Hellboy films.
But Rachel Rising, nominated as one of the Best New Series for the 2012 Harvey Awards – doesn’t have superheroes to draw viewers in. Just the stark tale of Rachel, a woman who wakes up in a shallow grave, alive except for the fact that she has a nasty scar across her throat and that she’s actually dead. She looks to her friends in town to help her solve the mystery behind her death, all while a freaky blonde killer is on her trail, using a freakier little girl as her mate. This isn’t gory, psycho horror. It’s a thought-provoking take on death, witchcraft and local history, which makes it vastly different from all of the shows mentioned in the first paragraph.
Though it’s still in its earliest stages, preliminary shopping around has attracted interested from various networks, sources tell THR. Something tells me this needs to land on a network that actually pays attention to what it airs, so none of the Fab Four here. Maybe Netflix or A&E could nail the B&W bleakness, but we’re interested even if this thing ends up airing on Disney.
