Season one of The Originals finished a long time ago, and if like me you are slowly suffering through the hell of hiatus then you may be looking for something to help you through, especially since it’s still 10 weeks until we get our Mikaelson Mondays.
Of course there are re-runs you could be watching, but there is another way. My DVD collection is stuffed full of the dubious (Devour, Solstice) and the more acceptable (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) entries from my TV crushes’ back catalogues, and I’m always looking for more stuff to catch them in.
As far as The Originals go, you don’t need to spend hours trawling Amazon to find the hidden gems this summer because Joseph Morgan has got quite a bit going on to keep you occupied.
He has several movies that are hitting festivals and DVD this summer, including Dermaphoria which co-stars Ron Perlman and Walton Goggins.
In Dermaphoria, East London’s Ross Clarke (working again with Teryn Fogel, the producer of Clarke’s documentary Skid Row,) heads West to America to make a stylish, atmospheric feature debut. Clarke’s film sees Eric Ashworth (Joseph Morgan, The Originals) wake up in jail accused of arson, and only able to remember the name Desiree (Nicole Badaan). A strange new hallucinogen allows him to recover his memories, but makes the world around him more and more terrifying, as past and present begin to blur together.
Also starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Walton Goggins (The Shield, Sons of Anarchy) and Kate Walsh (Grey’s Anatomy), Dermaphoria is a phenomenally realised, hallucinatory experience. Making atmospheric use of New Orleans, it recalls Angel Heart, Memento and Upstream Colour, and represents the arrival of a truly talented, distinctive new voice in cinema.
Dermaphoria debuted at the East End Film Festival in London on the 13th of June and the source material (written by Craig Clevenger) has been described as a love poem to New Orleans.
Check out the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5URfG8qOK4&feature=youtu.be
I’ve yet to see Dermaphoria but from everything I have heard from the premiere it is pretty special. As and when I get to see it I will try and post a review.
The other project I want to talk about is a movie called Armistice which stars Joseph Morgan and Matt Ryan (soon to be seen in the Constantine series which debuts on NBC on October 24th).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJI-KXARcGg
The official synopsis runs as follows
Armistice is a gripping, brutal, psychological film with a supernatural edge that charts one man’s fight to preserve his humanity and sanity over years of terrible imprisonment.
Royal Marine A.J Budd (Joseph Morgan) awakes in a mysterious house and is forced to fight for his life everyday against grotesque inhuman opponents. Trapped alone in an unchanging prison of unbreakable routines, he must kill everyday or die himself. As days stretch into years, the isolation and unceasing violence threaten his very soul.
The only note of hope lies in the journals of a former prisoner of the house, WW1 officer Lieutenant Edward Sterling (Matt Ryan). Discovered behind a secret wall, Sterling’s diaries serve as a mentor to the young marine and help to keep him alive, but what dark fate befell their author?
The stories of these two men from different times interweave as their desperation to escape the endless killing leads them both into taking terrible measures.
Armistice is a strange film, it packs quite a punch into it’s not-quite-90-minute run time, and by the end I had laughed and cheered and been left feeling emotionally drained. Armistice is already available on DVD in North America and Germany and will be available in the UK on August 25th. Release dates for other territories are still to be announced.
