Adam L.G. Nevill's Blog, page 36

‘UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE’ TRENDS AT MYSTERY TRIBUNE – A SUPERNATURAL THRILLER LIST

Very happy to see UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE make this list of trending supernatural thrillers. The last time I was trendy was in the early 90s, and only within the context of an underground subculture, or even a micro-culture . . . Some of these look interesting too. Thanks Rio Youers for the heads-up.

The full list can be found here

THE RITUAL FILM: DAVID BRUCKNER TALKS TO SCREAM MAGAZINE

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The film is also featured in the October editions of both Total Film and Empire. In addition, the director, David Bruckner, has given a terrific and detailed interview about making the film in Scream Magazine.

The interview covers a whole array of topics: how David came to the project, why Rafe Spall was chosen for the character of Luke, the bear situation on the shoot in the Transylvanian mountains (I was there, and armed hunters patrolled the set), the technical challenges of making a film in that wild environment, the locations, the special effects, and David’s and Keith Thompson’s interpretation of the monster … it’s an enlightening interview and the full version is available here

EARLY NOTICES FOR THE RITUAL PREMIERE AT MIDNIGHT MADNESS

Only a few weeks remain until the film adaptation of my third novel, The Ritual, hits the big screens right across the UK and Europe on October 13th. And after the film has featured at two International Film Festivals – at Sitges in the Official Fantàstic Competition, and in Toronto’s Midnight Madness – my horns are crossed that distribution for North America and many other international territories will also be finalised.

The film had its premiere in Midnight Madness at the Toronto International Film Festival last friday, supported by the cast, director, producers and screenwriter. The reaction from critics and horror fans who attended Midnight Madness has been very favourable (massive snort of relief), as were the initial reactions from the press screening in London, and that augurs well. Here are a few of my favourites so far:

“One of the best British horror films ever made and by far the best horror of the year. Instant genre classic either way.” SCREAM Magazine

“Very strong, tough horror movie, with a really dark heart.” Cinevue

“the creature was unlike anything I’d seen before. I could see it going down well with the Friday night cinema crowd.” Total Film

“Really enjoyed it – reminded me a bit of Dog Soldiers and The Descent – a good mix of British wit/humour with lots of jumpy moments.” Esquire

“Bruckner, aided by Joe Barton’s brilliantly realistic dialogue, does a fantastic job in highlighting all the right themes, without ever resorting to the facile in order to drive the idea home. Playing with the whole “cabin in the woods” horror genre, mixed with what is generally referred to as “pagan folk horror” a la The Wicker Man, the film manages to install a real sense of unease and genuine terror in its audiences, which is no mean feat” Heyuguys.com

“Bruckner nimbly jumps between various styles of scares and horror. He mixes psychological distress and grief with harsh nature survival, monster mash shenanigans, and a touch of the surrealistic uncanny. It all plays well, executed with terse intensity and a horror fan’s knack for shifting subgenres on demand to buck audience expectations. Spall is brilliant as the damaged lead, giving the heightened genre outing enough humanity to sting.” Dorkshelf

And information for Sitges can be found here 

THE RITUAL PREMIERES AT MIDNIGHT MADNESS, TORONTO INTL FILM FESTIVAL.

Stranger things have happened, but not to me. Here’s the cast with the director (David Bruckner) and screenwriter (Joe Barton) after the screening last night at Midnight Madness, in Toronto. The other photo features two of the producers, Jonathan Cavendish and Andy Serkis, with David Bruckner, the director.

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I met Imaginarium in 2012, just before my family and I left London, and the whole Imaginarium team gave me their thoughts on an adaptation, and a performance capture demonstration too. A couple of companies wanted the option for this book, but I was so taken with Imaginarium’s enthusiasm and ideas, I had a sense this was the best chance I’d ever get to see a book adapted. I do believe I made the right choice. They’re an amazing company. And how they got this up and dancing was truly impressive to follow and watch. When I consider all of the variables and difficulties involved with making a film, I’m amazed that anything gets made. This film has had a remarkable journey too.

But I still can’t quite believe it’s happened. I may bump my head later and wake up back in my old room in London in 2008, a roll-up hanging out the side of my mouth and slumped over my tiny desk, as I write a book about four “best” friends who went camping in Sweden (“Sweden? F***ing Sweden”). But it was always a book, from the first page to the last, that I could see, frame-by-frame, as a film in my imagination.

As I say, stranger things …

You can see the full premiere albums here

 

INTERVIEW IN SCREAM MAGAZINE WITH DIRECTOR OF THE RITUAL, DAVID BRUCKNER

There is a terrific, indepth interview about making The Ritual in Romania, with director, David Bruckner online at Scream Magazine.

“Coming from an independent filmmaking background I don’t always measure my ambition. You sort of strive for the impossible. We had a really great production services company in Romania and we’d looked in a few different places to shoot it but we were shown this immense range of forests in the Carpathian mountains in Transylvania which is about 7000ft high and at that elevation you get dark coniferous forest that kind of feels very Northern European. I fell in love with that look. I’d never seen wood like this. I grew up in the South East of the United States and those wood structures felt too familiar to me and I wanted them parachuted into a bizarre nightmare so we had to shoot there. We got a lot of support but it was incredibly challenging. It’s a mountainous area so getting a steadicam on there at 40 degrees, as I’m sure you can imagine, is not an easy feat. Every day we were in a different place and we scavenged that forest and really used as much of the area as possible. The weather at that elevation is also a problem, as well as bears…”

Full interview here:

DARKER COMPANIONS. A RAMSEY CAMPBELL TRIBUTE ANTHOLOGY.

As one of the “dark young” of Mr Campbell, I jumped at the opportunity to write a story for this collection and then suffered a quandary, as to whether I could do justice to a story in the spirit of Ramsey Campbell: to my two amber eyes, bisected by horizontal pupils, one of the greatest practitioners of horror and the weird in the entire contemporary field, and in the history of the field too. But I polished my hooves, had a go and my curious story made the final cut.

It’s sometimes difficult to read every anthology that I’m lucky enough to have a story included within, but when I look at that contents page I genuinely can’t wait to read this.

The publisher’s details are listed below:

AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Scott David Aniolowski & Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.

CATEGORY Horror

PUBLICATION DATE September 2017

COVER ART J. K. Potter

PAGES 317

INTRODUCTION Scott David Aniolowski

About the Book

Welcome to DARKER COMPANIONS, a celebration of Ramsey Campbell.

The year 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ramsey Campbell’s first fiction collection, THE INHABITANT OF THE LAKE AND LESS WELCOME TENANTS. The Arkham House book, published in 1964 when he was just 18, was actually his second appearance at Arkham House, the first being in 1962’s August Derleth-edited anthology DARK MIND, DARK HEART, his first professional sale as an author. To commemorate the impressive event, I thought it only fitting to assemble an anthology of stories in tribute to Ramsey, written by some of his many fans and friends currently working in the field of the weird.

Here’s the line-up in all of its perverse pleasure:

Introduction: Hymns from the Church in High Street by Scott David Aniolowski

Holoow by Michael Wehunt

The Long Fade into Evening by Steve Rasnic Tem

Asking Price by S.P. Miskowski

Author! Author?  by John Llewellyn Probert

Meriwether by Michael Griffin

The Entertainment Arrives by Alison Littlewood

Premeditation by Marc Laidlaw

A Perfect Replica by Damien Angelica Walters

There, There by Gary McMahon

We Pass from View by Matthew M. Bartlett

Meeting the Master by Gary Fry

Saints in Gold by Kristi DeMeester

This Last Night in Sodom by Cody Goodfellow

The Whither by Kaaron Warren

Uncanny Valley by Jeffrey Thomas

The Dublin Horror by Lynda E. Rucker

The Sixth Floor by Thana Niveau

The Carcass of the Lion by Christopher Slatsky

The Granfalloon by Orrin Grey

Little Black Lamb by Adam L G Nevill

The book can be ordered here

 

‘THE RITUAL’ THE FILM @ MIDNIGHT MADNESS, TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

A swift rap of all four hooves upon the flagstones as I’m as chuffed as a black goat to learn that The Ritual will screen in Midnight Madness at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Full preview and festival listing can be found here

 

UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE REVIEWED BY ODDLY WEIRD FICTION

“his uncanny ability to ratchet not just the tension but the sheer malevolence as the story progresses, and it’s no wonder that I couldn’t put this book down until I’d finished it, reading in the car as a passenger and long into the night in a Miami hotel before we started our week of vacation. The outside world just completely vanished for hours, which to me says that I was completely and deeply enveloped in the novel.”

We’re delighted with this review for UNDER A WATCHFUL EYE. Thank you Oddly Weird Fiction!

Full review here

JAMES EVERINGTON REVIEWS SOME WILL NOT SLEEP.

I consider myself very lucky to get James Everington‘s thoughts on my books, and am delighted by his take on SOME WILL NOT SLEEP. Thank for you time and appreciation, James. I raise my horns with gratitude,

I am particularly heart-warmed by his thoughts about my “creatures”. They are a paradox to write – a joy to invent but I often disturb myself imagining them: “… the way they move, the way they hold themselves, the way they smell or make the air taste foul around them. This concreteness gives Nevill’s creations a hold on the reader’s imagination for days afterwards; I’m still able to visualise the bloated, pasty beings of ‘Mother’s Milk’, and the terrifting creature from ‘Pig Thing’ more clearly than I might wish…”

His full review can be found here.

 

BEFORE YOU WAKE: THREE HORRORS – GET YOUR FREE BOOK

Folks on my newsletter already have this new free eBook from me – BEFORE YOU WAKE: THREE HORRORS – but if you’re not on my mailing list and would like to read this book too, it’s now available at many of the Amazons worldwide for free (definitely UK and US), and many other online retailers too. So pick up a copy with no fear of setting off any alarms on your way out of the stores.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Universal link to other stores

A recent review of the book here

And here’s the blurb:

“A trilogy of horror tales selected from the award-winning writer’s second full collection – HASTY FOR THE DARK – featuring more of the nightmarish visions and ghastly creatures that have been disturbing readers for years. In this book you’ll find three stories of occult and demoniac horror.

No blackmail is as ghastly as extortion from angels.

A swift reckoning often travels in handheld luggage.

No sign of life aboard an abandoned freighter, but what is left below deck tells a strange story.

Praise for Adam Nevill’s debut collection, Some Will Not Sleep: Selected Horrors:

“Nothing is sacred, nothing is safe, and goodness me, if you like horror fiction you’re going to absolutely love every damn minute.” Pop Mythology

“Beautifully crafted, original and complete works.” This is Horror

“An outstanding anthology of career spanning short stories.” Gingernuts of Horror”