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Our Good friends at Fangoria magazine are proud to announce their latest theatrical venture in association with Steven Mackler’s Bedford Entertainment! This is great news for all of us who clamor to see a horror film produced by the greatest horror magazine in print…FANGORIA MAGAZINE! Here are the details….
Ramsey Campbell’s award-winning novel NAZARETH HILL has been optioned by Steven Mackler’s Bedford Entertainment and will be scripted for theatrical production in association with Fangoria Entertainment. Campbell, known as a master of the psychological horror novel, is England’s leading writer of horror fiction, for which he has won nearly two dozen awards during his prolific career.
NAZARETH HILL will mark the first American theatrical film to be produced from one of Campbell’s novels. Campbell has previously had two of his novels turned into motion pictures by Spain’s Filmax company: the highly regarded THE NAMELESS in 1999 and 2002’s SECOND NAME. These films were helmed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, respectively, who went on to collaborate together on the blockbuster [REC] films. Campbell’s short story “The Seductress” was adapted for an episode of the Montreal-lensed Showtime anthology series THE HUNGER in 2000.
“Well, I’m delighted FANGORIA is involved with a movie version of NAZARETH HILL, and it’s good to see folk who know so much about horror (both on film and in prose) taking it on. I wanted to write a novel about a haunted building, and I thought I’d come up with a strong reason for it to be haunted. Of course, you also need the haunting to relate to your characters, and I think the horror of the book is equally the relationship between father and daughter-the terror of his turning monstrous, which parents too often do. I think NAZARETH HILL could make a pretty terrifying film-here’s to disturbing the audience!”
Born in Liverpool in 1964, Campbell has been writing since the 1960s. His novels (which include THE FACE THAT MUST DIE, THE INFLUENCE, ANCIENT IMAGES, THE PARASITE, INCARNATE, THE ONE SAFE PLACE and SILENT CHILDREN) and short stories have won acclaim worldwide. Author T.E.D. Klein said of the author, “Campbell reigns supreme in the field today,” while Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi noted, “Future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation.” Reviewing NAZARETH HILL for NECROFILE, Joshi praised, “NAZARETH HILL will not be long in taking rank as one of the finest haunted house novels in literature, rivaling even Shirley Jackson’s masterful THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE…With this novel [Campbell] has unified the many themes of his earlier work-pure supernaturalism; exploration of social and domestic trauma; chilling portrayal of psychosis-in a seamless fusion.”
First published in 1996, NAZARETH HILL (a.k.a. THE HOUSE ON NAZARETH HILL) tells the story of a rebellious teenager, Amy Priestly, who lives with her religiously autocratic and increasingly irrational father in an apartment building on Nazareth Hill. Their relationship has been shaky for some years and as it degenerates further, the building, which has a peculiar history of its own, is subject to a variety of episodes-some explainable, some not-causing many of the tenants to leave until the Priestly’s are practically the only ones left in the complex.
Mackler, a long-time associate of Fangoria Entertainment, says, “NAZARETH HILL has all the elements for a top-notch horror film; two main characters, each with offbeat psychological profiles; a living environment whose appearance is as odd and sinister as it is commonplace; and neighbors who might have come out of ROSEMARY’S BABY. With the right creative team, we feel we will make a theatrical film that is both dramatically absorbing and scary as blazes.”
“FANGORIA magazine has been chronicling Campbell’s work since the early 1980s and has always recognized him as one of the top masters of horror fiction,” says Fango editor emeritus Tony Timpone, who will produce NAZARETH HILL with Mackler and Fangoria Entertainment. “It will be an honor to bring his work to the big screen. Campbell’s fiction is unique, quietly unsettling, creepy and very horrific. His words get under your skin in a truly frightening manner. A film version of NAZARETH HILL has the promise to do the same.”
Mackler previously optioned author Elizabeth Hand’s novella CLEOPATRA BRIMSTONE, which has been scripted by UK writer Darren Monk. That project, which has drawn strong interest from overseas, is also being produced in association with Fangoria Entertainment. For more on Campbell, go to the author’s official website here.
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