Jack Sparks: the TV series
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Hey there <<First Name (optional)>> - I finally have some big news to put in my newsletter!
Been a while, as you may have noticed. Thanks for sticking around to get to the good stuff.
The UK production company Vertigo Films have announced their intention to make a TV series adaptation of my 2016 Orbit Books novel The Last Days Of Jack Sparks.
Vertigo previously made the likes of Monsters, Bronson, Mammals and Britannia. When I spoke with them in the second half of 2021, it was clear that they not only loved the novel, but really got what it was all about. Their passion was self-evident, which convinced me that they would be the right people to bring Jack Sparks to the screen.
The future gets even brighter when you see who's attached as director. In the last few years alone, Rob Savage (pictured above) has brought us the mind-bending found footage movies Host and Dashcam! Host was a great Zoom seance fear-fest, while the crazy Dashcam convinced me that Rob can capture pretty much whatever he wants on film. Dashcam also featured a really unlikeable main character in Annie Hardy, which proves that Rob would have no hesitation in bringing Jack Sparks to the screen, warts 'n' all.
Rob has just finished making a film adaptation of the Stephen King story The Boogeyman, whose trailer looks magnificent.
Rob and I have spoken many times before, and he has been very interested in Sparks for quite some time. With that in mind, plus his obvious film-making pedigree and rising star in the industry, I'm beyond glad to have him onboard.
The excellent screenwriter Gaby Hull (We Hunt Together, Two Weeks To Live) will be adapting the novel. By all accounts "a lovely man" (actual words from a TV producer friend of mine), Gaby's writing track record speaks for itself. The two aforementioned shows he scripted were both very strong indeed.
As is standard TV procedure, Vertigo will need to get a channel on board, before the final piece of the Jack Sparks TV puzzle can slide into place. So we're not out of the creepy Italian woods just yet! But it's a brilliant sign of Vertigo's confidence in this project that they're announcing their intent now.
They're also referring to this show as "a batshit horror odyssey", which is also a great sign! This certainly suggests they're not looking to shave off the novel's sharper edges. Having said that. of course, the TV show will and should be an entity entirely unto itself.
Yesterday, I delivered an exclusive vlog to my Patreon supporters at all pledge levels. In this 11-minute video, I stroll along the banks of London's Welsh Harp reservoir like some kind of Alan Partridge figure, while talking about the following:
- How I feel about the big Sparks news (obvs)
- How my planned move to a different city's going
- The highest price I ever sold a movie on VHS for!
- A snippet about the new novel I'm currently writing
If you'd like to join our community at Patreon, you'll gain instant access to this video, plus the 13 previous monthly vlogs I've made exclusively for patrons. Depending on the pledge tier you choose, you'll also receive perks such as other exclusive videos and PDFs, a personal thank you video, a thank you postcard and/or a thank you in the acknowledgements section of my next book while you're a patron!
Here are links to some of the Jack Sparks TV announcements in the online press:
Deadline
The Hollywood Reporter
Fangoria (this is the most exciting one for me, because I've loved this mag since I was a kid!)
How do you feel about the news? Feel free to let me know, either via the socials or by replying to this email!
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A few days after filming the aforementioned exclusive vlog for my Patreon backers, I came down with my first dose of COVID-19. I'm now on Day 12, I think, and even though I'm testing negative again, this level 3 biohazard has drained me in every way. If I try to do too much, I have to lie down again soon after. Yesterday, my first journey outside - a 10-minute walk to an Amazon locker* and back - felt like a mission to the Antarctic.
This newsletter will assuredly be my main project for today, and I will write it one segment at a time. As you can imagine, I'm keen to do everything I can to make sure that this post-viral syndrome doesn't bloom into Long COVID. Apologies to anyone to whom I owe emails, or post, or anything at all, but I'm having to seriously pace myself right now. I've been receiving great advice from the Long COVID support group, so a big thanks to them. 👊 (One thing they recommended to me was High5Zero electrolyte drinks, from which I've noticed a lift. This is not medical advice and this newsletter is not sponsored by High5Zero, etc etc etc)
* I know Amazon are Satan and everything, but their lockers are really cool. I'll never tire of letting a locker scan a barcode on my phone screen, then watching as one of the doors pops up to reveal my package. The future!
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Three things I'm watching on the sick-sofa
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While I often use horror as a source of catharsis and weird comfort, this hasn't been the case so far in my COVID experience. As long-time readers might remember, I all but stopped watching horror when the pandemic began too. I'm sure this will only be a temporary shift.
In recent days, though, I've been lifting my mood with sitcoms and YouTube.
1) THE YOUNG ONES
This legendary 80s show (above) is deeply rooted in my teenage years. My God, when this show arrived I thought it was literally God. And I still do, even though I can now see it a slightly different way through adult eyes. It still has the power to make me laugh, even though I often cringe at the shockingly high number of terrible Dad jokes, not to mention the fact that some of the dialogue is inaudible. I've been watching on DVD and switched the subtitles on, only to find some of the words marked inaudible even there! But hey, when you were making such a groundbreaking, awesome and ambitious show as this, you were bound to drop the odd ball here and there. The Young Ones remains a landmark in British comedy and I'm looking forward to revisiting the other nine episodes from the sick-sofa.
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2) HOUSE OF FOOLS
Oh, poor House Of Fools (above). It pains me that Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's 2014 BBC sitcom already languishes in obscurity, despite being one of the most hilarious comedies ever made.
Yes, it was ramshackle as all hell, but that's absolutely part of the appeal.
House Of Fools might just be the silliest sitcom you'll ever lay eyes on. When it really kicks off, complete with preposterous 80s-style special effects, it leaves me in a state of helpless mirth. And yet the show got axed after two wonderful seasons and the DVDs are out of print, going for high prices on the likes of eBay.
If you haven't seen this show, and enjoy Vic and Bob, not to mention the excellent Matt Berry (who co-stars as deranged ladies' man Beef), I urge you to buy Season 1 at rather cheap prices in the UK on Amazon Prime or Apple TV.
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3) REAL GENERIC DEMON
I have a new favourite YouTube channel! Honestly, these videos have really been keeping me afloat for the last 12 days. The intriguingly-named Real Generic Demon is a retro gaming channel, whose absolute highlight is a regular feature called What's On The Tape?
In these videos, the host scours through old cassette tapes to see which ZX Spectrum games are on them. Sometimes there might be random snatches of 80s music on them too, or who knows what else. Sometimes the games will load, sometimes they won't. Sometimes he'll have to resort to a really cool ZX Spectrum app called Play ZX that lets you load thousands of games from your phone to the Spectrum.
Sound good? What makes these videos even better, though, is that the host is a real chatterbox. His style is so conversational that it's like hanging out with a mate, sometimes for up to three hours. Which is perfect when you're unwell by yourself and isolating from your children, who you miss more than words can say.
Check out the channel here and, more specifically, the What's On The Tape? playlist.
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In my first few days of COVID, I wrote the first draft of a new short story. I'd only intended to test my mental resilience by tapping out a piece of flash fiction - maybe 200 words or so - but it ended up being 1500 words. I'm slowly redrafting the thing, day by day. When I'm happy with the results, my Patreon supporters will be the first to read the story behind closed doors. After that, I'll figure out what to do with it. The story's called Vermilion. As the thing stands, it's a short, sharp burst of horror that reflects my mood at the time I wrote it. It's probably quite funny too, I guess.
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The most evil horror film I saw lately
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Before COVID came along, I was watching horror films by the dozen.
The most evil of them all was the Canadian movie Skinamarink.
Now, I must confess that the first half-hour did not grab me. In fact, director Kyle Edward Ball's decision to hardly ever show anyone's face in his off-kilter frames frustrated me so much that I stopped watching.
I then did something I never normally do and read a random review.
When this review reassured me that there was substance and scariness to come, I went back and am so glad I did.
Well, sort of. Skinamarink is really horrible and disturbing.
The loose narrative sees two young children wake up in the middle of the night to find their parents missing. They go downstairs to the living room to watch some seriously creepy old cartoons, and things things get slowly worse and worse.
Very slowly.
Skinamarink is not a movie for the impatient, or for those who insist on standard glossy horror fare. The world is now full of threads in which people loudly debate whether it's amazing or awful. As usual, in this heinously algorithmically-divided world, there is no longer any middle ground.
For me, Skinamarink offers something new and daring in the genre. The film's bizarre and somewhat arty format allows it to do things that your standard horror film would never feel able to. Director Ball has said he based it on the most common childhood nightmare that people relate to him, but he takes it way further than that.
As I said before about the Terrifier movies' Damien Leone, I love horror film-makers who ignore boundaries. You can now add Kyle Edward Ball to that rare class of director.
So yes, if you're up for something new, with evil baked into its bones, check out Skinamarink on the Shudder channel.
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Given my lack of energy, I'm gonna draw a dark veil over proceedings here.
Hope you're feeling great, anyway. And thanks so much for reading this far and for (hopefully) staying subscribed.
See you in four weeks!
Jason 👊👻🎃
P.S. I've been using Mailchimp for this newsletter for years. Sadly, Mailchimp are about to change their policies, which means it will now cost me more to run the newsletter than I can afford. But I think a migration to Substack would be a good move anyway. Mailchimp is chock-full of bells and whistles that I'll never, ever need, while Substack feels much more user-friendly.
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