Two years ago today, we welcomed Paul Kane into the Luna family. It is with great pleasure that I can now announce our second collaboration: a movie tie-in project. Paul's horror novelette 'Men of the Cloth', will soon be a feature film coming out this spring, titled 'The Colour of Madness'. Andy Collier and Tor Mian of Loose Canon are wrapping up production as we speak. To celebrate the occasion, Paul will be releasing a new collection with us, to include 'Men of the Cloth', packed with bonus material straight from the set.
Here is what Paul had to say on his latest project:
"I’ve been a film fan all my life – my BA and MA are both in Film Studies, and I’ve been known to script the odd short movie or two… very odd sometimes! So imagine my delight when I was contacted by Loose Canon films to see if I’d written any stories in the folk horror sub-genre.
And of course my answer was yes, I’ve done a fair few; I absolutely love folk horror! I sent a number of shorts over, including ‘Men of the Cloth’ a tale revolving around an isolated English village and creepy scarecrows – inspired by my time teaching out in the community for a further education college.
Imagine how that delight turned into excitement when Andy Collier and Tor Mian of LC wanted to meet up and discuss adapting that particular novelette into a feature. Marie and I spent a terrific day – where else, but in a pub; all the best meetings take place there! – chatting with Andy and Tor, talking not only about the possible film but all things genre-related. They asked me at that one if I minded them changing the tale for their script, which I didn’t at all. I’ve had some experience of my work changing when it’s adapted into other mediums, most memorably when ‘Dead Time’ became New Year’s Day for NBC/Lions Gate’s Fear Itself. And, to me, it usually results in something very interesting – seeing how other people approach your stuff. Writing’s quite a solitary business, so I for one always enjoy collaborating or seeing what other creatives can do with the seeds of your narrative and characters: in this instance, transplanting the action to Norway, paring the family down to a couple – the wife being pregnant – and making it Lovecraftian, something I definitely had no problem with. Oh, and giving it a new title, which I fell in love with instantly: The Colour of Madness.
Then imagine how my excitement shot through the roof when I was told genre legend Barbara Crampton – no stranger to Lovecraftian horrors herself, having starred in Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator and From Beyond – had been brought on board! I’ve been a fan of Barbara’s work for so long, and this was just a dream come true. At the time of writing, the feature has been shot – you might have seen me sharing lots of behind the scenes photos from the production company Hyrda Films – and is in post-production. I caught up with Andy again at a HWA pub meet in September when he’d just got back to this country, and we got chatting again over yet more beers – by a strange coincidence the bar in London served a Norwegian beer! And the idea of doing some kind of tie-in cropped up, which would include not only the original story and some of the other ones I pitched – not to mention my own aquatic Lovecraftian tale ‘Thicker Than Water’ – but extras in the form of pieces by Andy and Barbara, an extract from the script, and some of those excellent behind the scenes photos, many of which haven’t been seen at all before.
I mentioned I’d just had a book published by the superb Luna Press, who had been a joy to work with, and that The Controllers had a similar format: a collection with extras, including a gallery and hand-written scans. We both got excited at that point and when I returned home again I pitched to Francesca and Rob, who were equally as excited about the notion… And so, the project that’s just been announced from them was born, timed to coincide with the movie coming out – and with a cover based on an original poster. It’s my dearest hope that you guys are as excited about the upcoming release – of both the feature and the official movie tie-in – as we all are. What a way to start not just a new year, but a whole new decade!
Until then, as the tagline to The Colour of Madness says: Dream well…"
The book will be released on the 21st of April 2020. Pre-orders will open at the start of February.
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