Eli Roth and Landon Liborion Q&A

8 April 2013

How do you feel about the ‘Twilightfication’ of horror and how the success of those movies made it easier to find an audience for a show like Hemlock Grove?

Eli Roth:  

Well, I think you know, Twilight obviously appeals to a massive amount of fans for a very particular reason, and I think it’s the evolution of the genre. I think it’s great.

I think whatever gets people excited about horror there’s always going to be someone coming up with a new way. Some new spin or some new twist. Whether it’s Paranormal Activity reinventing the haunted house movie or Twilight reinventing the vampire genre with a romance novel and sort of the way that Interview with a Vampire was you know, 15 years earlier.

It’s funny to me when I see people complaining going, “Vampires can’t be out in the day.” But I also actually go to those movies on midnight opening night and it’s an incredible experience to be in those theaters and it’s packed with teenage girls and married women who sort of escaped their husbands for the night.

I went with my girlfriend to go see Twilight and I was like, “I want to understand what this is.” Every single screen in the multiplex was completely sold out. It was a frenzy. People were going crazy and you just felt the energy and I thought, “How can you not love this”.

This is getting 12, 13, 14-year old girls really, really excited about the possibility of horror. They probably had a very different idea of what vampires were, what horror was.

Now we’re four or five years on, that those fans are going to grow up. That they’re going to want to see stories with similar themes. Not just werewolves and vampires, all kinds of monsters, but done in a much more adult way. Those kids are going to grow up and they’re going to want something that’s much harder.

Landon Liboiron:

I went to one of those Twilight films and it was like what I could imagine a Beatles concert to be like back in the day because they were going absolutely crazy.

What I love so much about Hemlock Grove is because it was a vampire/werewolf thing it had to be like really cool, unique material for it to be something new and interesting. And I think that’s what Hemlock Grove is.

That it does take all those sort of gothic folklore characters and kind of rips them open and makes them a lot more raw and a lot more real really appealed me about the project of Hemlock Grove. These characters of vampires and werewolves are just so much more human than what they are.

Do you think that this could be a new way for young writer/directors to get in and tell their stories, as opposed to the budget horror film?

Eli Roth:

Yes. I think that there is a great deal of freedom in how you can tell the story and what you can do in a show like Hemlock Grove that you didn’t have before in traditional network television. Netflix is presenting this fantastic alternative to television and it does feel like there’s a sea change now in the content that’s being made and the way it’s being digested, and the demand for what people want.

It feels like 10, 15 years from now we’ll look back at this time as this was the moment when things really turned. So I think that for new writers and directors, it’s so hard now to get a movie that comes out in 2000 theatres. But now you know you have a show that you can do and it’s available in 30 million homes.

So I think Netflix has done such a brilliant job really leveling the playing field, along with iTunes and other kind of streaming formats as well. It used to be so hard to find a movie, if there was a horror film from Ireland I would have to go to the UK, have someone recommend it, find the DVD. But now, you can just go right on the section on Netflix or on iTunes for independents, new, and noteworthy and you can watch these films.

So I think that now there’s more of a chance than ever for people to see new work and also for old work. There’s going to be a time where people watch Hemlock Grove, they see everything Landon Liboiron did and they’re going to want to go back and watch every other show he’s done and it’ll be right there at your fingertips.

So I think it’s great for the filmmakers and I also think it’s a very exciting time for the actors as well.

When Hemlock Grove was being conceptualized and developed, the idea of releasing something as a Netflix exclusive was kind of untried and untested. So what drew both of you to this medium rather than the conventional TV route?

Eli Roth:     

Well, I'm always excited to pioneer a new way of doing things. I remember when Cabin Fever was bought, Lionsgate hadn’t done a wide release horror movie. They only did four wide releases a year, but they were so into it and so excited that you know I was much more included to go with them. It wound up being the smart decision.

The same thing happened with Netflix. They’re really, really were passionate about the material and they wanted to go right to series. They have these incredible algorithms where they know exactly how many people are watching your movies or renting their movies. I was on their radar of people that they wanted to get involved with.

I think that what makes Netflix different, other the fact that you can do the whole show and every episode comes out at once is the interactivity of Netflix’  You'll watch this show and at the end of an episode, right away it’ll say, “If you liked this, you can go and watch Cabin Fever or Hostel.”

I remember talking to the actors basically saying that for Lilly Taylor, for Famke, they have such an incredible back catalog of movies that at the end of an episode it will link to all of their other movies that are on Netflix.

So it’s a great way of not only expanding your fan base, but there’s a lot of people that are going to watch this show that have never seen my other films that now if they like the show can just press a button and have it right there. It’s really combines the viewing experience and the interactivity, and I think that’s how you really, really grow your fan base.

Landon Liboiron:

There’s been a lot of this sort of you know vampire/werewolf thing going around lately. It’s very popular right now. So when I first kind of read the storyline for this I was wondering would it be dangerous to do a werewolf/vampire thing? Then once I started reading it, it was such a page turner.

The script is so well written and the characters are so incredibly like deep and I think important, and the story is very, very cool and it just made you want to know more and it made you want to keep going. Obviously with House of Cards as well, Netflix are choosing very, very good stories.

And I think Netflix is cool because it’s the story without breaks, you know? It’s the story without any pause so you can watch the story as long as you want. It was really cool being able to work on a project like that.

Hemlock Grove premieres on Netflix on April 19th when all 13 episodes will be available to watch instantly.