Tag Archives: Aaron Martin

Featured, Slasher

Slasher: Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter preview Flesh & Blood

There are several new faces added to the cast of the new season of Slasher. Dubbed Flesh & Blood for Season 4, the blood-soaked horror anthology series created by Aaron Martin boasts perhaps the biggest name in the genre: David Cronenberg.

The actor and director jumped at the chance to play Spencer Galloway, a manipulative businessman who gathers his family together to compete in a deadly game, with the winner to be declared sole inheritor of his fortune.

Alongside familiar Slasher faces playing different characters fighting for Spencer’s fortune are Paula Brancati, Jefferson Brown, Patrice Goodman, Sabrina Grdevich and Christopher Jacot are new faces in Rachael Crawford, Jeananne Goosen and Alex Ozerov. We spoke to creator Aaron Martin and showrunner Ian Carpenter about how the new season—kicking off Monday at 9 p.m. ET on Hollywood Suite—came about.

Ian, how did the writing room work for Slasher: Flesh & Blood?
Ian Carpenter: Aaron and I were in the writing room, and we did all of that on my porch. When we started the show, we were in the heart of [the pandemic]. One of the very first [times writing] was when I took one of the last flights around when I visited him in Vancouver to kind of gestate all of this. We did it all in person, and I don’t know of a writer that doesn’t think that’s essential. There is something about a Zoom meeting that puts pregnancy on every single second and all of this pressure for it to be loaded. Aaron and I are very productive, and I bet 50 percent of [writing] it is us being idiots and cracking jokes. I just feel so strange via Zoom.

Aaron, did you have multiple seasons in mind when Season 1 of Slasher was conceived or was it more organic?
AM: It’s been more organic. There have been ideas for locations or settings or backgrounds for seasons. Every season is a new thing and, usually, it starts with a theme or an issue. [Flesh & Blood] came about because Shaftesbury and, I think Shudder had already come on board, said we could develop it. I had just spent the Christmas holidays with my family. I love them, but by the time I was done, I wanted to kill a few of them. I think that’s when I said to Ian, ‘What if we did a family reunion where they actually get to kill each other?’ That’s how we approach every season. Season 3, Solstice, [was inspired by Justine Sacco] who tweeted something she thought was funny and was horribly offensive, and by the time she landed 12 hours later, it had blown up and ruined her life.

Because the show isn’t killings every five minutes, we need the stuff to build around, the thematic stuff and dramatic stuff is how we do that.

One of the things I love about Slasher is the dialogue is so believable. Aaron, is it difficult to write dialogue?
AM: I don’t think so. I think, in my scripts if you go back to Degrassi and definitely Being Erica, I never try to do dialogue that is cool and flippant. I write how I think people talk. And then, when I’ve finished a script I’ll go back and read it and if I’m stumbling over words or it doesn’t seem real, I’ll change it.

Ian, Adam MacDonald returned to direct Slasher: Flesh & Blood. You have known each other for years. Do you two have a shorthand, where there’s not a lot of discussions? Do you each know what the other is thinking?
IC: I’m really fortunate that Adam and I were close friends before Slasher started. Incredibly, we were both hired within weeks of each other on Solstice. This season, we felt absolute confidence in each other, what we were going to do, what we were strong at, what we needed to talk about. It is shorthand with him, just as it is shorthand with Aaron. It lets you focus on what matters, which is also important when it comes to hiring key creatives on a crew. We’re so lucky to have so many of ours come back.

Aaron, having so many cast and crew return to the Slasher family season to season must be very fulfilling.
AM: The great thing about working in Canada is that it’s a small community, and that’s great because it’s of that. I love actors and I love bringing back actors, for this show especially, because it’s a great opportunity for them to show different facets of themselves. It is a great feeling to have them respond that way, and you want them to.

Ian, what was it like to have David Cronenberg as part of the cast this season?
IC: He was amazing. He was so complimentary, so excited about the material and really saw the depth in it. He is so crucial to the story, so it was exciting to hear how he was connecting to that. And then, as much as we are this scrappy little show, David Cronenberg has said, ‘Yes, I want to be on this show.’

Slasher: Flesh & Blood airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Hollywood Suite.

Images courtesy of Cole Burston.

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Slasher

Links: Slasher: Flesh & Blood

From Heather M. of The Televixen:

Link: Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter talk casting, characters and stunts in Slasher: Flesh & Blood
“When we’re coming up with our characters, oftentimes we’re talking about which of our returning actors or other actors we have wanted to work with would be good for those roles, because, in Canada, at some point or another you’ve worked with, or have seen the work of, other actors, so we know shorthand wise, who excites us.” Continue reading.

From Clark Collis of Entertainment Weekly:

Link: Legendary filmmaker David Cronenberg on his role in Slasher: Flesh & Blood and his return to directing
“I was very flattered that they would offer me this role because it is a role unlike anything that I’ve ever played before.” Continue reading.

From Mads Lennon of 1428 Elm:

Link: Slasher: Flesh & Blood cast and crew discuss the brutality of the new season
From the very beginning of Slasher Season 4, you’ll discover that this season is not pulling any punches. It goes all out with the gore, shocking kills, and twisted family secrets. Continue reading.

From Heather M. of TV Goodness:

Link: Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter talk Slasher: Flesh & Blood
This Thursday, US audiences can get their gore on when Slasher‘s fourth season, “Flesh & Blood,” makes its US premiere on its new home, Shudder, before premiering in October in Canada on Hollywood Suite. Continue reading.

From Victoria Ahearn of the Canadian Press:

Link: Horror master David Cronenberg on confronting death, on camera and off
“He’s really nasty. He gets sadistic and he gets to yell at a lot of people, which is really a lot of fun. I don’t do that much in my own life. So it was fun to be a guy who does that.” Continue reading.

From Marriska Fernandes of the Toronto Star:

Link: David Cronenberg learns that it’s fun to be nasty in ‘Slasher: Flesh & Blood’
David Cronenberg, the director and sometime actor hailed as one of the world’s most iconic horror filmmakers, couldn’t say no when the makers of the made-in-Canada horror series “Slasher” offered him the chance to play a type of person he’s never portrayed before. Continue reading.

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Slasher

Slasher: Flesh & Blood in production for Shudder and Hollywood Suite

From a media release:

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced today that it has teamed up with award-winning production company Shaftesbury to make a new eight-episode installment of the hugely popular horror series, Slasher. Hailed by Bloody Disgusting as “top-notch horror storytelling”, Slasher: Flesh & Blood will stream exclusively on horror platform Shudder in the US, Australia and New Zealand in 2021. Shudder will also be the streaming home for Flesh & Blood in Canada, the UK and Ireland following its linear premieres in those countries. The series will be broadcast exclusively on Hollywood Suite in Canada. Production is underway now in Ontario, Canada.

Slasher: Flesh & Blood follows a wealthy but dysfunctional family gathering for a reunion on a secluded island. Their old wounds and competitive rivalries flare up when the family realizes a masked killer is on the island, intent on cruelly picking them off one by one. As with the past installments of the series, Slasher: Flesh & Blood will combine elements of traditional murder mystery with the intense horror and bold kills that audiences have come to expect.

Canadian horror legend David Cronenberg has joined the cast for the new season, which will also continue Slasher’s trend of bringing back cast members in new roles. Returning from previous seasons are Paula Brancati, Jefferson Brown, Patrice Goodman, Sabrina Grdevich, and Christopher Jacot. New faces this year include Rachael Crawford (Heartland), Jeananne Goosen (The Walking Dead), Sydney Meyer (Departure), and Alex Ozerov (The Americans).

Slasher is developed and produced by Shaftesbury and created by Aaron Martin. Slasher is executive produced by Aaron Martin, Christina Jennings, Scott Garvie, David Ozer, Thomas P. Vitale, and Ian Carpenter, who also serves as showrunner; Adam MacDonald is director.

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Another Life

Links: Another Life, Season 1

From Norman Wilner of Now:

Link: TV review: Netflix’s Another Life is a fun disaster-a-minute sci-fi series
Sometime in the not too distant future – at a point when we’ve achieved faster-than-light space travel, but also still have social media – an alien ship crashes to Earth and turns itself into a weird glittery formation, its origin and purpose a total mystery. Who sent it? What do they want? And who’s brave enough to find out? Continue reading.

From Heather M. of TV Goodness:

Link: Previewing Netflix’s Another Life
Netflix taps the science fiction well again when it drops the ten-episode first season of Another Life this Thursday. Headlined by Katee Sackhoff, who also produces, and starring a deliciously diverse cast, the series is both a deep dive into space and the humanity of people who leave their real lives behind to go there. Continue reading. 

From Samantha Nelson of The Verge:

Link: Netflix’s Another Life starts as Arrival, then turns into Star Trek
Set in the relatively near future where humanity has developed spaceships that can travel faster than light, and technology that puts people in stasis for long journeys, the story of the 10-episode first season (four episodes were provided for previews) largely follows Niko Breckinridge (Katee Sackhoff), a veteran astronaut who was involved in a disastrous mission to Saturn nine years before that left half the crew dead. Continue reading.

From Tia Gooden of Den of Geek:

Link: Another Life Review
Galactica nostalgia may be enough to intrigue some sci-fi lovers’ but, if the first two episodes are any indication, the premise won’t do much to retain their attention. Continue reading.

From Kevin Yeoman of Screen Rant:

Link: Link: Another Life Review: Netflix Offers Up A Dissatisfying & Derivative Sci-Fi Thriller
Netflix’s new sci-fi thriller Another Life has a great hook: It brings Katee Sackhoff back to outer space on a television series for the first time since her run as Starbuck ended on Battlestar Galactica. Continue reading. 

From Adam Rosenberg of Mashable:

Link: Another Life is an unhinged ‘so bad it’s good’ Netflix sci-fi series
Space is where things get really wild, though. The young crew faces a never-ending string of disasters as they journey toward their destination, and yet in the midst of all the horror they still make time for petty squabbling and lustful pursuits. Continue reading. 

From Remus Noronha of Mea Worldwide:

Link: Netflix’s ‘Another Life’ star Elizabeth Faith Ludlow shares how Katee Sackhoff helped her get through a ‘panic moment’ during the shoot
“Katee was right there and she has done it before so she came over to me and was talking me through it and letting me know everyone’s going to be right here if you need anything.” Continue reading. 

From Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter:

Link: Another Life review
The best thing actors have going for them when they’re in something that is, let’s just say, less than stellar, is their own history. If they’ve done good work, you know they can act. Give them good words and the best actors will make them great. Continue reading.

From Daniel D’Addario of Variety:

Link: Another Life Review: Katee Sackhoff stars in Netflix show
Netflix’s new series “Another Life” brings Katee Sackhoff back into space, a decade after the conclusion of “Battlestar Galactica,” the beloved series on which she starred. Continue reading. Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Featured, Slasher

Ian Carpenter lives his dream showrunning Netflix’s Slasher: Solstice

Ian Carpenter was convinced Aaron Martin didn’t like his writing style. Yes, Martin—the showrunner behind series like Degrassi: The Next Generation, The Best Years and Saving Hope—had hired Carpenter to work on Being Erica, but since then … nothing.

“He and I would meet for a work day in a café and I would ask him what he was working on, and he would tell me about this great thing and all of the great writers he had in the room with him,” Carpenter says with a laugh. “I hit a point when I said to myself, ‘Well, maybe he doesn’t like my writing.'” It turns out the right project hadn’t come along. Until now.

Slasher: Solstice is the third season of the franchise created by Martin—it’s available on Netflix now—and Carpenter is on board not just as a writer but showrunner too. Martin’s latest creation, Another Life starring Katee Sackhoff, had been greenlit by Netflix meaning he wasn’t available to handle Solstice. Enter Carpenter, horror fanboy.

“Every meeting that I was having with anyone, when they asked me what I wanted to work on it was horror,” he says. “That’s all I want to do for the next many years.”

Slasher: Solstice keeps the franchise’s cast intact by reuniting several actors from past seasons in Dean McDermott, Joanna Vannicola, Paula Brancati, Erin Karpluk, Jim Watson, Jefferson Brown and Paulino Nunes with new faces in Baraka Rahmani, Lisa Berry, Mercedes Morris and Salvatore Antonio. And, like the franchise, Solstice meets up with these characters as awful things happen in present-day to match a truly terrible occurrence in the past.

We spoke to Ian Carpenter about his dream gig.

How did the writing for this season come about?
Ian Carpenter: Aaron had pitched the season, it had been approved and he had written an amazing pilot that is, for the most part, entirely there. If I changed anything, it was maybe five per cent. Thirteen out of the 15 characters were there and he knew who [was behind the crimes] and the whole arc down the line. He had the tent poles worked out and then we sat down and broke the next four episodes. And then, once he became unavailable, I broke the remaining four with a writer named Matt MacLennan. At all times I was, of course, running things by Aaron. There were a couple of massive twists that I sent to him and got super-excited responses back. It was so much fun to freak out the creator.

Can an eagle-eyed viewer spot the person or people behind this during the season?
IC: I didn’t encounter anyone that had picked it out and wasn’t floored by the story. But, as a guy who has spent a lot of time with the episodes, I’m pleased with how much it is seeded in there. Like, ‘Oh my god, when this person is saying this, really this is going on.’

A woman screams while crouching over a dead body.A big part of Slasher’s storytelling is through flashback. I noticed this goes back as far as 20 years. It that the furthest?
IC: I think so. I’m obsessed with the emotional weight of everything and I want us to mourn the characters who die. As I’ve been working on this I’ve come to realize how much I want there to be hope, positivity or light in the show. In this season, as it is in past seasons, is that the deaths mean something. It’s not a nihilistic lopping off of people’s heads all over the place for no reason. For sure, there are a couple of characters people want to see die and probably celebrate their end, but at all times I want to feel the weight of what’s happening.

Adam MacDonald directed all of Solstice’s episodes. What was it like working with him?
IC: We’ve been friends for, I think, something like 20 years. I was hired maybe two weeks before Adam was and they were pursuing him ahead of time so it was just bizarre, amazing luck that we were on it together. We were close then and we are way more close now. I would put his work up against anyone’s. It’s so incredible. I have never worked with a director who has a more visceral connection to the camera. I love the expressiveness of the camera and he has done something that really stands out in the genre and on TV.

The apartment building serves as the main focal point for much of the action and story. Was it always the intention to have that claustrophobic feel?
IC: Aaron was riffing off the case in New York City where the woman was murdered in front of her apartment building and people watched but did nothing. We wanted to spin around that and I loved the claustrophobia of it, and of people brushing up against each other, getting in each other’s business and driving each other crazy. And it makes those moments where you leave the building extra special.

You not only have a diverse cast but you don’t shy away from storylines containing xenophobia, hatred, inclusion or acceptance.
IC: It’s a huge part of everything Aaron has ever done and I’m the same way. I wanted to make it carte blanche across the board and I feel like it led us to discover some really exciting talent. And, it’s a big part of some of the themes this season. Netflix was totally into that and was a big part of this season’s pitch. It’s fun to tell those stories right now because it’s so important. A lot of hard work went into not making it simplistic.

Slasher: Solstice is streaming on Netflix now.

Images courtesy of Shaftesbury.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail