By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The team behind CULT HERO now puts a new spin on a classic monster.
Director Jesse Thomas Cook (MONSTER BRAWL, SEPTIC MAN) gave us the first look at the poster (designed by CreepyDuck) and a few photos from his sci-fi/horror/comedy THE HYPERBOREAN, which has its world premiere at FilmQuest in Provo, Utah next month. Scripted by novelist/screenwriter Tony Burgess (PONTYPOOL), it stars Liv Collins, Ry Barrett, Jess Vano and Jonathan Craig. The synopsis: “A whiskey magnate summons his contentious family to sample his legacy product: casks of Scotch aged 170 years, recovered from a ghost ship in the Canadian Arctic.” Needless to say, something much more dangerous accompanies the alcohol. The creative team also includes producer Samuel Scott, cinematographer Ken MacLaughlin, editor Mike Gallant, Juno-nominated visual artist Anne Douris, Emmy-winning special effects artist Karlee Morse and several Canadian Screen Award nominees: visual effects artist James Anthony Young, composer Adrian Ellis, production designer Dan Herrick and costume designer Carrie Cathrae-Keeling.
“After 13 horror movies and having tackled zombies, creature features, cults, haunted houses, etc., one of the remaining subgenres I had yet to explore was the nearly forgotten mummy film,” Cook tells us. The look of his film’s creature was based on buried sailors at Beechey Island from the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition, and he continues, “The Canadian Arctic is littered with the icy graves of British sailors from the persistent and often ill-fated explorations of the polar regions in the 1800s. This is our very Canadian Ice Mummy movie. I was rejected from film school, but eked out a degree in history. Never thought I’d put it to use–until fucking now!”
