Home Entertainment John Carpenter's DARKCHYLDE adaptation gets a cast update and old school monster effects

John Carpenter's DARKCHYLDE adaptation gets a cast update and old school monster effects

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Like I mentioned yesterday, Hollywood loves comics. One of the main reasons why we’re suddenly seeing such a boom of comic book adaptations is because of the advances in CGI that’s been made over the last few years. We can finally reproduce true reflections of comic book images on-screen, no matter how fantastical.

The downside to all of this though, is an over-reliance on CGI and eschewing of practical effects by a number of filmmakers. John Carpenter is not like other directors though. For his adaptation of monster filled comic, Darkchylde, he’s keeping it old school.

For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it focuses on Ariel Chylde, a teenage girl who could transform into any of the monsters from her nightmares. Obviously with all those monstrous characters you’d think that a large number of them would be created digitally, and as Carpenter’s wife, Sandy King Carpenter, revealed to the Daily Grindhouse, digital wizards WETA (Avatar, Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are indeed busy with the concepts, but for the most part, the creatures will be done using practical effects much like in the director’s classic horror The Thing, with just a few digital enhancements.

Mrs Carpenter also revealed that they were approaching 3 of the most talented young actresses in Hollywood for the title role: Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass, Hugo, Let Me In, Dark Shadows), Elizabeth Olsen (Silent House, Martha Marcy May Marlene), and Elle Fanning (Super 8, We Bought a Zoo). While there’s no guarantee that they’ll even come close to landing any of them, especially Moretz who seems to be fully booked until she’s old enough to vote,  it does bode well for the direction they’re taking with the film though. You see, Darkchylde came out in the mid-90’s, which I like to refer to as the Starkers Ages of American comics as pretty much everything was just an excuse to show off impossibly anatomied girls dressed in the least amount of clothing possible. Darkchylde always had story potential, but unfortunately the blatant T&A overshadowed all it’s promise. Case in point, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find a decent, non-exploitative picture of Ariel for the header above.

But although it’s still early days on this production, from what I’m seeing/hearing it looks like they’re at least taking this far more serious than some would. And with horror veteran Carpenter at the helm, this could be all kinds of twisted fun. Or, you know, end up like Vampires.

Last Updated: July 13, 2012

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