Stephen King has written an incredible 59 novels, as well as ten short story collections and five non-fiction books. That’s loads. He’s so prolific that his name is basically synonymous with absolute pant-wetting white-knuckle terror.
A lot of his massive output has been set in the same fictional town, Castle Rock. Hulu’s new show of that name intertwines characters and plots from various King works (not limited to ones explicitly set in that town in the books) - its first teaser trailer unveiled a few months ago referenced dozens of works from throughout his career. It should work on two levels - accessible to the casual viewer and packed with Easter eggs and surprises for real King-heads.
Then we had the second trailer, which confirms our fears (good fear, natch):
The idea seems to be that endless hideous events take place in this town, and ultimately the real force of horror might be the town itself, for some arcane, unsettling, ancient reason. It should allow for either standalone anthology-style one-off episodes and lengthier mythology, and, on the basis of this third and brand new trailer, is going to be scary as all hell:
Brrrrrrr. Looks bleak. Looks scary. Looks unpleasant. Looks… really watchable. We will watch all of this, sobbing and trembling.
A few of the cast are Stephen King veterans - Sissy Spacek played Carrie in the 1979 movie, while Bill Skarsgård was Pennywise in last year’s IT. Other than lead Melanie Lynskey, best known for her dramatic work, none of them are strangers to horror, like Jane Levy (the Evil Dead remake), Scott Glenn (Silence of the Lambs) and Andrew Holland (American Horror Story).
Castle Rock will be on Hulu from 25 July. There’s also reportedly a Dark Tower TV series on the way from Amazon.
(Pic: screenshot)
