Tag Archives: Slasher

Preview: Frankie Drake Mysteries, “Out on a Limb”

Last week, Frankie Drake and the team infiltrated a phone exchange to solve the case of harassment against a toymaker. This week they go undercover again but in a very different setting.

Here’s what the CBC has revealed about “Out on a Limb,” written by Frankie Drake Mysteries co-creator Carol Hay and directed by Ruba Nadda.

When a showgirl dies, Frankie’s investigation leads her to go undercover as a server at a mermaid-themed nightclub.

And, as always, a little bit of insight from me after watching the episode.

Paula Brancati guest stars
The last time I saw Paula Brancati on my television was on Netflix where she was being dispatched in a bloody way on Slasher: Solstice. This time she’s in a very different role as Maxine, a former showgirl at the nightclub. Also, Emmanuel Kabongo returns as Moses. Look for James Gilbert, Lou Jurgens, Daniel Henkel, Sara Mitich, Gregory Calderone, Richard Fitzpatrick and Keelin O’Hara in guest roles.

New team hangout?
When we meet up with the team, all four are at the morgue where Mary and Flo give updates on the case. The scene is just a few minutes, but I loved it. Having the ladies together in that setting really made an impact on me. I hope they do it more this season.

A serious storyline
Monday’s newest episode deals with a subject that is all too recognizable today and was just as prevalent in the past. One particular scene features Mary and Flo in an emotional discussion very different from what we usually see on Frankie Drake Mysteries.

Frankie Drake Mysteries airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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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. 

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Link: Forget about American Horror Story, try Netflix’s Slasher instead

From Nathan Smith of Daily Grindhouse:

Link: Forget about American Horror Story, try Netflix’s Slasher instead
For those of you who favor more deliberate, compact and intimate storytelling complete with flawed characters that deeply resonate, when they’re not being filleted in broadcast unfriendly scenes of slaying, then check out Netflix’s (formerly Chiller’s) SLASHER created by DEGRASSI: THE NEXT GENERATION alum Aaron Martin. Continue reading.

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Slasher: Solstice’s Paula Brancati reflects on playing Violet

When I last spoke to Paula Brancati, it was at the end of a bug-infested day near Orangeville, Ont., on the set of Slasher: Guilty Party, where she played a character named Dawn.

Now Brancati is back—along with several of her Guilty Party co-stars—in Slasher: Solstice, the third season in the franchise created by Aaron Martin. Slasher: Solstice keeps the franchise’s cast intact by reuniting several actors from past seasons in Dean McDermott, Joanna Vannicola, 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 Brancati about playing Violet.

It’s exciting times for everybody, thanks to Netflix. The reach for a Canadian series like Slasher is worldwide instantly.
Paula Brancati: It’s really exciting, I think, especially with something like Slasher where it’s an anthology, and so each season really has its own identity, and they feel like they can have their very unique stamp on them, each shot by a different director. I feel like we’re doing something new every year with the show. I’m overwhelmed in the best way with how big the reach is, and I always forget how many people can actually access the show and watch it in perpetuity, all over the world. It’s mind-blowing, and the response has been super-positive.

What I like about the Slasher franchise and what Aaron started is that, yes, it’s a horror anthology. Yes, there are gory deaths, but the deaths mean something, and there’s emotion attached to these characters.
PB: I completely agree with you. I think the reason I was so delighted when Aaron came to me with this in Season 2 with that character was that I’d never worked in horror before. I think I had certain ideas about what the genre was like. I was pretty thrilled to see that in Season 2, and then in Season 3 as well, that the characters don’t fulfil these horror movie tropes in the same way.

I would be delighted to watch a show with any one of these characters leading it. To get to have so many complex characters, to see such an incredible, diverse cast that looks like the city we’re actually in, that has female characters that are so complicated and so exciting, I think that that’s what the show does really well, and then horror is just another element to it. It makes me very proud to be a part of this particular horror franchise.

A woman screams while crouching over a dead body.Violet thinks she’s helping. She’s a lonely character, and there’s definitely some sadness to her because the only real connection that she feels is with this anonymous group of people that watch her videos.
PB: I ingested a lot of YouTuber footage before bed, and I would leave the Kardashians on in the background because I think they aesthetically for her are a huge influence, as they are for a lot of millennials. I think she wishes she was Nancy Grace, too. She’s listened to Serial over and over again. She watches and listens to, I think, current things, and probably would also be very dated in some of her references. It was a lot of fun to build her from the outside in as well, and play with her voice.

She’s so much fun. There are so many directions you can take it in. [Director] Adam [MacDonald] was very clear about wanting to make sure it felt very much like a real person. I think that’s the danger with someone like that, with a character like that is I was worried that maybe people wouldn’t believe that she exists on this planet. I think from the response we’ve been getting, people seem to know her well. I don’t know if that’s frightening or not, but it’s what they’re saying.

The other thing that struck me was this relationship between Joe and Angel, obviously, but also Angel, Joe, and Violet. It was a complicated relationship between the three of them. I thought it was really well written, really well done, and didn’t feel forced in the middle of a show where people are being killed off every episode either.
PB: Thanks for saying that. I agree with you. I think it was so well written, and it’s a real testament to the writers. Somehow amidst this 24-hour crazy killing spree, it felt so honest. I think that’s also a testament to Ilan Muallem and to Salvatore Antonio, who played Joe and Angel, respectively, because you really feel right away when you meet them, you feel like you’re right in something.

A figure dressed in black faces the camera.I think Ilan does such a nice job. I really feel like he absolutely had a real love for Violet and that they probably did have so much fun for a very long time. She’s in a whole other planet really, really far away from him. Those scenes behind, you know that door? There’s a scene where he’s locked her into the bathroom. That stuff was really exciting and very challenging to shoot. I found that stuff really very like it pushed us in directions with each other. I really think Adam, again, treads a really great line of keeping everything energetic but also feeling really real.

I think those things can go off the rails if you don’t have a director who’s really tasteful. I felt really in very, very good hands.

What are you working on now? Do you and Michael Seater still have your production company?
PB: Yeah. We do. We’re developing a couple of TV things. I went off to Italy and shot a feature that I produced and was in, called From the Vine. Wendy Crewson played my mom in it. Joe Pantoliano is the lead and it was directed by Sean Cisterna. We’re just finishing post-production on that right now. There’s a sci-fi feature that’s doing a festival run that I was a lead in with Erin Berry, who was one of our producers on Slasher, called Majic. Paulino Nunes is in it. That’s doing a festival run right now.

Slasher: Solstice is on Netflix now.

Images courtesy of Shaftesbury.

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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.

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