Despite the popularity of his novels, one thing that has always always eluded James Herbert is a successful film adaptation. Even a proposed television series of original chillers in 1987 never happened … as David J Howe found out.
James Herbert’s novel Haunted (published November 1989) originally started life as a proposed television series for the BBC in 1985/6. As was normal, BBC Producers would routinely discuss ideas and projects with the BBC’s Head of Series and Serials, and limited development was then done to see if they had ‘legs’ and could be commissioned.
The origin of the Haunted series proposal can be traced to
a BBC Producer named Evgeny Gridneff, who, at the time had just completed
recording on a mini-series called Hold
the Back Page. ‘In September 1985 I was having discussions with Jonathan
Powell, the BBC’s Head of Series and Serials, about producing Star Cops the following year, which he
wanted me to do. As a freelance Producer one had to seriously consider work
that was being offered, even if it was something that wasn’t your own idea or
that you had originally proposed. At the same time, as one always has to think
ahead, I was on the lookout for new ideas and projects to develop and I felt
there was a gap in the market for a good horror series. I’ve always been a fan
of the unusual. Tales of the Unexpected
and the original series of Star Trek
were firm favourites. As a teenager I also read a lot of Marvel comics and
horror related comic books, so was broadly familiar with the genre.
‘I mentioned the idea
of a horror series to Joanna Willett, who was my script editor at the time on Hold the Back Page.’
‘I remember I met with
the horror writer James Herbert,’ recalls Willett, ‘but I can’t remember the
exact circumstances of the meeting. I do know that James was initially
resistant to something original for television, but warmed to the idea during
our discussion.’
Willett mentioned
Herbert as a possibility to Gridneff. ‘I read a couple of his books, which I
enjoyed,’ he says. ‘But I was more interested in doing an original story rather
than an adaptation of any of his books. So might he be interested in creating a
TV series?
‘I contacted his
agent, who later came back to say that James was initially interested. Next I
approached Jonathan Powell with the idea and he seemed keen and told me to go
ahead and see what James had to offer.’
In October 1985
Gridneff and Willett flew to Jersey, where Herbert was living, for a first
meeting to discuss the possibility of him coming up with an original story for
a TV series. ‘It was a good meeting and we got on well,’ explained Gridneff.
‘He was interested and had a few ideas floating about, but needed to think
about it. His one proviso, if it did work out, was that he would write the scripts.
He admitted he’d never before written a script but was willing for the
challenge. He wanted control of the process, which was fair enough. Jo and I
wondered, when we later flew back home, whether he could do it, as it’s quite
different from writing a novel.’
‘That’s true,’ says Willett. ‘There was some nervousness from us about whether James could write it or not. Writing television is very different from writing novels. It’s far more collaborative. I remember James also being quite clear that he wasn’t used to rewrites on his novels.’
Gridneff started
Producing Star Cops in December 1985,
and was working on the series with the show’s creator, Chris Boucher. There was
a lot of work to be done as Boucher had devised the show as half hour episodes,
but Jonathan Powell wanted it as a series of 10 x 50’ episodes. ‘In the
meantime,’ said Gridneff, ‘James Herbert produced an idea that he titled Spectres which I liked. This resulted in
a lunch with James, myself and Jonathan Powell to discuss it all. As a result,
Jonathan agreed to commission a series – which soon became Haunted.’
By May 1986, Jo
Willett had moved on from the BBC to work at Euston Films and Granada
Television, and Gridneff decided to proceed without a script editor. ‘James had
sent a draft of the first episode of Haunted.
I was disappointed, it wasn’t very good. It needed a major rewrite if it was
going to work. I wasn’t looking forward to facing him, which I knew I had to
do, so I arranged to meet him at his new home in Woodmancote, near Henfield. A
beautiful house in its own grounds. After a few pleasantries, I asked him how
he worked with his book editors and publishers. I knew he designed his own
covers. He said that he delivered the manuscript and they published it. Didn’t
the editors make suggestions for possible rewrites, I wondered? He said they might have done, indicating to
me that he might not have been prepared to do any rewrites. Ah, I thought, we
might have a problem here as I had a lot of notes.
‘I said I felt that
the series was coming along, but that there still was a bit of work to be done
on the script. He stared at me stony-faced and just said “Go on …” I then began
the task of slowly going through all my notes. During each major point I could
sense he was getting progressively angrier, only making the occasional
disagreeing comment. I was now getting prepared to be shown the door. After I
finished he dropped his copy of the script on the coffee table in anger. “I’m
really furious,” he said. I waited for a barrage of words and was ready to make
my leave. “What really makes me angry …” he added having calmed himself, “is
that I think you’re right. It’s not working as it is. I need to look at it
again. Your notes make sense. Thank you. I’m angry at myself for not getting it
right first time.” He then agreed to do a rewrite and we parted on good terms.
‘In the interim he
kindly invited me to the publication launch of his new book The Magic Cottage. He later delivered a
much better version of Episode 1, which I was happy with, and was working on
Episode 2. We also discussed bringing in other writers, which I believe was his
suggestion. I remember a lunch meeting between him, me and Stephen Volk to
discuss the possibilities.’
‘I remember meeting
Evgeny and James in Julie’s wine bar in Notting Hill,’ recalls Stephen Volk,
now an award-winning writer of screenplays and prose. At the time Volk had just
finished working on the script for Ken Russell’s film Gothic. ‘The idea was a series which span out the Ash
character and used him as a running character investigating hauntings, each a
different story of the week. The concept was that some would be supernatural
and some would have natural explanations. They asked me to look at Episode
Three.’
‘The brief was to base Episode Three (which was a standard BBC 50 minutes in those days) on one of a couple of ideas that Herbert had provided as notes for the series. One was about a haunted church, and so I wrote a script which I called “The Church”. I recall it was to do with the ringing of bells, which turned out not to be supernatural but rather that the vicar was going mad.
‘My interest in the
whole thing was in writing a modern ghost hunter. I was not enormously
impressed by the characterisation of David Ash in the initial scripts, with his
leather jacket and whiskies. That is all his characterisation seemed to be. To
my mind it was essential in a drama to give him an attitude to what he
investigated. I made him more cynical and sceptical, and that was connected to
denial and the backstory about his sister’s death. (The ghost hunter who
debunks because secretly he wants to believe … I later explored this in my
script of the film The Awakening and
to an extent in my TV series Afterlife).
Herbert, I recall, didn’t much like what I’d done and was quite curmudgeonly
about it.’
As with much
television development, a lot of time can go by without anything much
happening. During 1986 and 1987, Gridneff was busy on Star Cops and trying to develop other series. Haunted meanwhile had gone on the back burner. ‘I don’t remember
much,’ Gridneff says, ‘apart from keeping in touch with James, mainly to let
him know there was no news. No other scripts had been commissioned after
Episode 3. We were waiting to get the green light to actually produce the
series. I was invited to the publication launch of James’s new book Sepulchre at the Ritz in July ‘87, and
we continued to have a good relationship.’
‘I’ve done a TV series
for the BBC,’ Herbert revealed to Michael Parkinson on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs transmitted 14
September 1986, ‘which should be very scary. Not horrific in the sense of blood
and gore but psychologically very chilling. I’ve got high hopes for that. The
BBC have been very good. They’ve actually gone along with me with everything
I’ve asked for, so we hope to start filming that next May. That’s actually a
series and it’s going to scare. I promise you that.’
During 1987, Jonathan
Powell was promoted to Controller of BBC1 and the role of Head of Series and
Serials was taken by Mark Shivas. ‘Shivas wasn’t interested in doing Haunted or any of the other projects
that I offered,’ says Gridneff. ‘Furthermore, my contract wouldn’t be renewed
and I left the BBC in April 1988! It was not a happy time.’
Gridneff was left with
having to let Herbert know the news. ‘I rang James to tell him that Haunted was not going to be done now at
the BBC. However, no longer with the BBC myself, I was prepared to go and pitch
the series to ITV and Channel 4 if he’d let me. He would only agree, however,
if I’d be prepared to take out a paid Option on the series. I explained that I
couldn’t afford to, hoping that as we seemed to work well together, he’d be
happy to let me try and sell it without any finances involved. But it wasn’t to
be. That was it. The end of the project.’
‘I think the BBC just
got cold feet about the idea of a supernatural drama series,’ says Volk. ‘As
they invariably do. In spite of the name of a best-selling author being
attached. It is ever thus. They don’t understand the supernatural genre and
they don’t like it, even when they say they want to make it! As it happened I later did an adaptation of Herbert’s novel The Ghosts Of Sleath for Bentley Productions as 90 minuter, with an
eye to ITV. It never happened, but I revisited David Ash in that, at least.’
Herbert’s second draft scripts for the first two episodes of the series exist.
These introduce and tell the story of sceptical psychic investigator David Ash
and his experiences at the haunted mansion of Edbrook. The scripts would no
doubt have been further revised and amended prior to filming. The first
episode, for example, runs to 167 pages, and at the industry standard of one
page equalling one minute, would amount to around 2 hours 47 minutes. The
second script has 115 pages which is around 1 hour 55 minutes. Willett recalls
that the idea might have been, and that Herbert was very keen on, the opening
episodes being more feature-length which would explain the longer length of the
scripts. As to whether this might have been accepted by Jonathan Powell or not
is lost to history …
James Herbert’s
eventually published novel Haunted
follows the scripted version pretty faithfully. Added to the novel are two
flashback chapters (9 and 23) which deal with Psychic Researchers Kate and
Edith’s past relationships with David Ash, and two supernatural experiences
that they shared together. These would appear to be based on the additional
episode ideas supplied by Herbert during the course of the development and
discussions as Chapter 9 is all about a Church in which the bells keep ringing:
it is different to Volk’s script though. Otherwise the novel is effectively a
novelisation of the scripts.
‘When Haunted was published as a book and went
to number one in the best seller lists, I rang James to congratulate him,’ said
Gridneff. ‘He thanked me and said he was grateful for my input and suggestions on the original story during our script discussions. I had
hoped I’d get some acknowledgement in the book – but there was none, which was
sad.’
‘Typical BBC,’ said
Herbert when interviewed about the project. ‘Everyone said they loved it, even
the typists, and then Jonathan Powell, who had been in charge of drama, was
promoted. A new guy, Mark Shivas, came in and apparently he didn’t like ghost stories
and so nothing further happened.’
David J Howe
HERBERT ON FILM
David J Howe explores the various film adaptations of James Herbert’s work.
The first of James Herbert’s books to be adapted as films were The Survivor in 1980 with Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter and The Rats in 1982/3 (called Deadly Eyes in America), starring Sam Groom and Scatman Crothers and directed by Robert Clouse. ‘I had nothing to do with those two films,’ states Jim. ‘I heard after the event that The Rats had been sold to Golden Harvest who did all those Bruce Lee Kung-Fu films. I sent a note to David Hemmings when I heard he was directing The Survivor to offer my assistance if he wanted it – I didn’t get a reply. I’ve seen them. They’re terrible … absolute rubbish. I can only say don’t blame me.’
Following this was a film of Fluke in 1995 and also a higher profile film of Haunted in the same year. ‘I sold it to Lewis Gilbert,’ says Jim. ‘Lewis is a lovely man – in fact that was part of the problem. He’s so nice it’s very hard to argue with him. I actually stood in my office here, and said, “Lewis, I’m telling you from my heart, what you’re doing is wrong. I’m telling you. Twenty years experience writing horror … what you’re doing is wrong.” His response: “Oh darling, it doesn’t matter. What we’re doing is not set in concrete, we can change it.” Of course they didn’t change it because they were doing exactly what he wanted to do.
‘Despite my reservations it turned out to be a good quality film – it just wasn’t my story any more. It starred Aiden Quinn, Kate Beckinsale and Anna Massey with Anthony Andrews and Sir John Gielgud – a great cast. It was at the premiere that I got to meet Princess Diana. I remember she said to me, “So you’re responsible for all this, are you?” and I said, “Well yes. I hope you don’t mind some horror.” “I’m used to it …” she replied …
‘The film of Fluke on the other hand I’m quite pleased with. Years ago, an Italian film student called Carlo Carlei came to see me in London and said that he wanted to be a director and that my book Fluke had changed his life, and that it was the film he wanted to make. He explained that it might take a long time as he’d have to do others before until he had the budget. So he paid me year after year after year for the rights to the novel and finally he made a film in Italy that Hollywood liked and so they gave him the money to do Fluke. The script was OK and it turned out to be a great little film. That starred Eric Stoltz just before he did Pulp Fiction.’
Other film options have been taken out on Jim’s books, but none have yet to see fruition. There was interest in Shrine from a film producer but this ran into financial problems, there was interest in The Magic Cottage from America but this currently in limbo, The Fog was optioned in the early eighties, but that has now expired, John Hough was interested in The Dark but this too fell apart. Creed also had many admirers, amongst them British comedian Lenny Henry. ‘Lenny rang me up out of the blue and arranged to do a big sales pitch to me to get the rights to do the movie. Now Lenny is very funny but he’s also very, very intelligent and he’s extremely nice, you just couldn’t wish to meet a nicer guy. I’d made up my mind within five minutes that I was going to let him have it, because I liked the idea of Lenny playing Joe Creed. It was a twist to it, it was unexpected.’
As of writing, however, the film has not yet materialised. ‘I’d love to have a decent film,’ Jim muses. ‘That would be one ambition, to have a really good movie made of one of my books.’
The Secret of Crickley Hall, was filmed by the BBC for television in 2012. ‘I haven’t had much involvement,’ said Herbert in a 2012 interview for Sussex Life, ‘but I read the script for the first part and thought it was brilliant. I really believed that it was unfilmable, but the director Joe Ahearne wrote the script as well and he is just really great.
‘I asked for certain things to be changed and they agreed to so much, but then when I got the second script I couldn’t finish it because they had changed too much. But I realise that once you have handed the book over it is up to the director’s vision. I went up to the filming in Buxton and watched a scene with Joe. Suranne Jones really surprised me with the sheer depth of her acting, so I am expecting good things.’
Finally, Shrine was optioned by Sam Raimi in 2018. In February 2020 it was reported by Deadline.com as having started filming by writer-director Evan Spiliotopoulos in Massachusetts with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Katie Aselton, Cary Elwes and William Sadler. The film was released as The Unholy in April 2021.
JAMES HERBERT
