Now in principal photography
Canadian actor Art Hindle (Black Christmas) takes on cannibals in Offspring, an adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel which spun off from the grisly Off Season. Directed by Andrew Van Den Houten, and penned by Ketchum, the screen incarnation began rolling earlier this month with Pollyanna McIntosh, Tommy Nelson, Spencer List and Eric Kastel starring. Set in Maine, the story pits a family against feral, hungry savages.
“It’s looking fabulous,” Hindle tells Shock after introducing a screening of Black Christmas to some newbies at Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear in Toronto. “We’ve got Bill Miller who has worked with Andrew many times doing the photography. Wonderful locations. We’re shooting up in Muskegon, Michigan. Lake Michigan is standing in for the Atlantic Ocean, so we’re shooting in the dunes up there. I still have sand coming out of every orifice.”
Van Den Houten, as it turns out, chose to adapt Offspring over Off Season because the rights to the latter are tied up with someone else.
“Andrew thinks it’s a more interesting filmic experience to do Offspring ,” Hindle says. So how does the director bridge his film to the first novel without confusing the audience? “He plays that off through my character George Peters who was in the first story. The cops come to him when the stuff starts happening again, these atrocities. He realizes what’s going on and gives them the lowdown with two pages of exposition!” laughs Hindle.
The actor is pleased to report his character mixes it up with the film’s tribe of flesh-eaters. “I do get involved. They don’t appreciate being followed and they do something about it in a very vicious, gory and gutsy way.”
Hindle has two more weeks of shooting before he calls it a wrap on Offspring then it’s on to a possible directing gig which will get underway next year for Critical Mass and Anchor Bay. “It’ll be an action/sci-fi kind of thing. They’ve asked me to direct it and I’m quite excited to do it.”
Source: Ryan Rotten
