Stefan Hutchinson’s been a great friend to Cinema Crazed since we began reviewing his comic books and our raves about his takes on “Halloween” and the mythos of Michael Myers have not been sycophantic. If you’ve ever read a comic from this man, you’ll know he’s one who understands the world John Carpenter unfolded for horror audiences, and why it’s remained so prevalent in the film community in spite of bad sequels and remakes. With that said, we hear from Hutchinson and his approach to the comics.
So what inspired you to write Tarantula Man?
Tarantula Man came about as a result of a long discussion between myself and the team who write the website material. We were having a conference about potential new content for the site, and Greg Mitchell (one of the site writers) suggested possibly doing Tommy Doyle’s comic books. My thoughts went into overdrive at that point and I came up with the rather wrong idea of a pedophile arachnid. I was thinking about things that would scare a child, and I instantly thought of how myself, as a child, I was constantly warned to avoid strangers. In my mind when I was young, strangers were shadowy figures that hung around by the school gates and in the garden at night. That was the sort of thing I was trying to tap into there.
In the days of overexposed, computer heavy FX extravaganzas, horror films that go for a more subtle build of terror are usually dismissed as cheap throwaways that just don’t have the budget to compete with the big studio thrill rides. It’s no secret that the “less is more” philosophy is the independent filmmaker’s best friend, but occasionally there comes along a movie that embraces its sense of mystery and uses a building sense of menace to its advantage.
Ah if only for the days where saying a line like “Nice fucking Model!” would warrant a PG rating. If only for the days where snake monsters and women smoking through the holes in their necks were considered fodder for the prepubescent crowds. “Beetlejuice” is still mysteriously considered somewhat of a family film, and hell, it’s one I grew up on even in spite of disliking with immense passion.
It’s a common rule of nature. Games based on movies always suck, while movies based on games, also always suck. But hey, we know where studios are coming from. If a game is making millions and becoming a pop culture smash, then it’s only fitting a movie would have to be made. The problem is there’s yet to be a good movie that’s been adapted from a great video game. Deny it all you want, but let’s be honest, even “Mortal Kombat,” while cool, just wasn’t faithful to the game. It was PG-13, Shang Tsung was a younger man, and the movie is very cheesy these days.
These past few decades haven’t particularly sold me on the Witchblade franchise that’s for sure. For one, I never found too much to take away from the comic book beyond Michael Turner’s fantastic art, and then here came the TNT Television series that was nothing but underwhelming and completely void of any potential to rise above the television crime series doldrums it practiced.