The Creator of Shudder’s New Christmas Anthology on Spooky Vacation Traditions

When you’ve been creeping round Shudder searching for one thing so as to add slightly fright to your seasonal viewing, you might need seen The Haunted Season—a model new anthology collection from showrunner Kier-La Janisse, a genre expert whose many works embrace standout film-theory e book Home of Psychotic Ladies and up to date folk-horror documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched.

The primary entry, To Fireplace You Come at Final, is written and directed by Sean Hogan; it’s a couple of group of males carrying a coffin to be buried who’re haunted (actually) by previous misdeeds whereas making the journey. To study extra about The Haunted Season, which can carry one new entry to Shudder over the following a number of years, we talked with Janisse over video chat.

Cheryl Eddy, io9: I’ve learn your e book Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Movie and Tv, which provides an exquisite historical past of the style and the traditions behind it. However for individuals who won’t have learn it, I’ll borrow one of many chapter titles and ask: “Why the ghost story at Christmas”?

Kier-La Janisse: It’s fascinating as a result of Derek Johnston, who wrote that chapter, years in the past wrote a e book referred to as Haunted Seasons, which my title is totally ripped from [laughs]. Once I was doing the Yuletide Terror e book, there’s lots of of movies in it, however most of them are very clearly related to Christmas ultimately. They’re both about Christmas or they happen at Christmas, or there’s seen Christmas decorations in order that you possibly can justify it as a Christmas film. 

However loads of the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas [episodes] of the Nineteen Seventies had nothing to do with Christmas. And so once I was together with them within the e book, I believed, North American audiences are usually not going to know why these movies are right here as a result of they’re like, “What have they got to do with Christmas?” I requested Derek if he would write a chapter speaking about the place this custom comes from, of telling ghost tales of Christmas and the concept of Christmas programming—not essentially the programming itself, however the truth that it’s chosen to be programmed at the moment. 

It goes again centuries—it comes from the older custom of telling winter’s tales. [When] individuals gathered across the fireside or across the fireplace, and they might provide you with leisure to cross the time whereas they had been making an attempt to maintain heat. Winter’s tales had been what they had been referred to as as a result of they’d be these spooky tales that they might inform [when] the times are so brief and [the season is] turning over into a brand new 12 months. There’s this concept of liminal boundaries between one state of being and one other. They might inform these ghost tales after which over time, as soon as we began having written literature, you’ll begin to see references to them in [places like the works of] Shakespeare and Marlowe.

Then in fact within the Victorian period, you may have Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which was massively essential, not just for the concept of the Christmas ghost story, however only for Christmas typically. It was a part of Queen Victoria’s mandate to repopularize Christmas. Charles Dickens writing that story when he did was an enormous a part of not solely cementing this concept that Christmas is the time once we inform ghost tales, however that that is the time of 12 months now we have Christmas—as a result of earlier than Queen Victoria, it had type of fallen out as a preferred vacation. A Christmas Carol turned essential for creating loads of these concepts and mythologies now we have round Christmas—Christmas tree decorations and all these accouterments that we affiliate with Christmas that got here from that interval. 

The ghost story for Christmas got here to be related very strongly with that interval—an additionally, there have been so many ghost story writers within the Victorian period … there’s simply tons and tons of them. And so when radio got here in, they began doing radio variations of A Christmas Carol and different kinds of ghost tales across the vacation. Then, that reworked into tv. 

So the BBC was type of at all times lively and doing ghost tales for Christmas in some kind or one other. Within the Nineteen Seventies, Lawrence Gordon Clark, who was a director, proposed this concept of—he didn’t foresee it being a collection. He proposed one movie doing an adaptation of M.R. James’ story The Stalls of Barchester. He used a earlier adaptation of an M.R. James story as proof that this could possibly be well-liked; Jonathan Miller had made an adaptation referred to as Whistle and I’ll Come to You within the late ‘60s, which is improbable. And it was not made for Christmas. It was made for a special time of 12 months, a special program. 

However Lawrence Gordon Clark took that to them and mentioned, “Look how good that is, and picture if we may do one thing like this for Christmas.” So he made The Stalls of Barchester. It was an enormous hit, so then he received permission yearly to maintain making one other one. And so it turned a collection; all by means of the ‘70s, there could be a special episode. 

And so that’s what my collection The Haunted Season relies on—this concept of an annual ghost story movie that premieres yearly. And I do know for North American audiences, utilizing the phrase “collection” to explain one thing that solely has one episode for a 12 months is bizarre, however it’s primarily based on that custom. It’s mainly a Christmas particular that’s ongoing, the place there’s a brand new installment yearly. That custom nonetheless exists within the UK. So this collection is simply a part of that larger custom.

io9: How did you resolve on To Fireplace You Come at Final as the primary entry? How did writer-director Sean Hogan get entangled?

Janisse: Sean Hogan is a filmmaker, a author of books, a playwright—he does all types of all types of issues. He’s extremely proficient, actually nice with interval dialogue. And so I proposed to him—and he can do rather a lot with slightly, which is essential as a result of now we have very low budgets for this stuff—if he would make a brief movie initially for Severin Movies’ folks horror field set. We had been doing our new field set, All of the Haunts Be Ours Quantity Two. The primary field set had my documentary [Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched] on it—it had a brand new movie on it. And we had been like, “We don’t have an equal of that for the second field set.” So we requested Sean if he would make a movie for that. 

I gave him a few prompts for it. The thought of it being set on a corpse highway was one thing that got here from one of many prompts that I gave him. 

However earlier than he even completed the movie, I form of flashed again to this concept that Sam Zimmerman from Shudder and I had over a decade in the past once we used to work collectively for Fangoria journal. Again then we had been making an attempt to get Fangoria to do a ghost story for Christmas that we may premiere on the web site, and the writer wouldn’t go for it. However we had wished Sean Hogan to make that movie. 

So when Sean was making this movie for me, earlier than he was even finished, I mentioned to [Severin Films’] David Gregory, “What if we will pitch this to Shudder about being a part of an ongoing collection of ghost tales for Christmas?” And David was like, “Positive, go for it.”

And so Sam and I had a dialog, and it was superb as a result of it was this concept that we had that was not authorized years and years in the past. We had been so enthusiastic about it, like, “Let’s do it now!” And in order that was actually the way it occurred. It was in some methods a really long-gestating challenge, however then it simply was like every thing clicked, the place it was like, all of this might really work, you realize? I’m simply tremendous glad that Sean Hogan made the primary one as a result of he was the filmmaker we had been speaking about doing the Fangoria one all these years in the past. 

I really like the movie. It turned out so nicely. He made it with a small staff within the UK and—you may’t inform from watching the movie, nevertheless it was freezing and raining whereas they had been making it. They had been in very antagonistic circumstances, however I feel it turned out rather well. 

io9: To Fireplace You Come at Final may be very conventional, very a lot within the fashion of the older movies. Is that one thing we’ll be seeing because the collection continues?

Janisse: I don’t know that they’ll be in black and white, however they are going to all be interval. They received’t essentially be that very same interval, however they’re supposed to have interaction with the previous ultimately. The rules that I’ve given the filmmakers is that undoubtedly nothing after, like, 1960. You’ll be able to return to the Center Ages if you’d like, or you may go as much as the ‘50s, you realize, nevertheless it has to really feel [like a period piece]. That was what the custom at all times was.

It’s fascinating, when A Ghost Story for Christmas first performed within the ‘70s, the final two episodes, they made trendy tales—they didn’t adapt like older Victorian ghost tales. They made new tales, trendy tales set in trendy settings. And the viewers on the time revolted—loads of them received dangerous evaluations. Now individuals love these episodes as a result of now they’re classic, now they’re interval items. However on the time once they had been new, individuals had been like, “You’re ruining the custom!” So I made a decision that I used to be going to maintain the parameters. It’s [a pretty broad time frame], however they are going to nonetheless be interval items of some kind. 

io9: Are you able to tease something about any of the opposite entries?

Janisse: The one factor I can tease is that I’m doing certainly one of them [as my first narrative film]. I’ve requested different individuals, they’re writing their scripts now—I’ll tease [more] when the time will get nearer. 

io9: I’m an enormous fan of Woodlands Darkish and Days Bewitched, your folks horror documentary. Are these Christmas ghost tales a part of the people horror custom?

Janisse: It undoubtedly crosses over due to that oral custom side of it. Like loads of the BBC ghost tales for Christmas, you in all probability name them extra like gothic horror than folklore, nevertheless it relies upon. One thing like A Warning to the Curious and Whistle and I’ll Come to You you possibly can name folklore as a result of they’re undoubtedly digging up an artifact from the previous that’s carrying all this baggage with it. There’s undoubtedly folks horror components to a few of them, however a few of them are undoubtedly extra within the gothic realm. However I feel that Christmas ghost tales, simply due to the truth that they’re tied to this oral custom, that makes it a bit extra related to folklore.

io9: And also you’ve talked about a few titles, however for individuals who watch the primary episode of The Haunted Season and need to see extra in that vein, what do you suggest they search out? 

Janisse: Properly, Shudder has licensed Jonathan Miller’s Whistle and I’ll Come to You. Completely begin with that. They usually’ve licensed Lawrence Gordon Clark’s A Ghost Story for Christmas from the Nineteen Seventies. These are those that my collection is referencing, so I’d suggest taking in all of these—there’s like 9 completely different decisions of what they will watch. I don’t know if they’ve The Stone Tape on Shudder [editor’s note: they do!] however The Stone Tape was broadcast for Christmas. It doesn’t have something to do with Christmas, nevertheless it was broadcast as a part of the Christmas programing, as a Christmas ghost story. And that’s an ideal one, too.

Watch To Fireplace You Come at Final, the primary episode of The Haunted Season, on Shudder now.

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