This past Sunday night brought two new episodes from SCREAMBOX’s Original Series “Tales From the Void,” an anthology series that adapts six tales of terror from the extremely popular r/NoSleep by series creator Francesco Loschiavo.
Director Maritte Lee Go’s “Carry“ and Loschiavo’s “Starlight” unleash more r/NoSleep-inspired nightmares, now streaming on SCREAMBOX. The episodes will also be available to buy or rent via electronic sell-through platforms beginning on Tuesday.
“Starlight“ marks the second of three episodes helmed by the series creator, but expect a vastly different flavor of horror this week. Loschiavo’s latest episode continues the series’ moral conundrums while venturing into bloodier Giallo territory.
“Starlight” turns r/NoSleep tale “The Million Dollar Question“ by Joao Andre Narigueta Ribeiro into a Giallo episode. Loschiavo says of his latest episode, “I started reading r/No Sleep probably back in 2012 or 2013, a little bit after it was started in 2011, and I always thought it would be cool to do a show around this content. I kept seeing the long-form series coming out and thought, well, there are lots of really good short stories here; I don’t know why anyone’s not doing this. So, I spent two years reading r/No Sleep and curating it, and this was one of the ones that I thought really stood out and that could be interesting. There are a lot of great stories on there, but not all of them translate to cinema. This was one that I thought would be quite interesting, and we had the idea to do it as a Giallo film, which I think added a lot to it. So yeah, it was one that stood out of the pack when we were curating it.”
As for what to expect, the filmmaker tells us, “Each episode has a subtext of a societal commentary, like Twilight Zone. So, this episode is a social commentary on influencer culture and people who want to be famous. It follows a struggling YouTuber, Whit Barnett, who is trying to become an overnight success online and cannot understand why. He’s invited to participate in a game show called The Magnificent Million Dollar Question, in which he ignores some of the early warning signs that the show might not be on the up and up and eventually goes to a twist ending.”
“Obviously, I took the color palette,“ Loschiavo says of his Giallo influences in this episode. “We pulled a lot of reds and greens into it, and the lighting switches as Whit gets to more dangerous areas of the game show. I pulled the knife movements a lot from Giallo films; the look of the killer was definitely heavily inspired by the Blood and Black Lace mask, so to speak. Music is going to be a big one, but I actually think the plot to me is a Giallo in reverse. If you’re watching closely, there are some clues that you should be able to figure out who the killer is before Whit does.”
The series creator gave out homework for his cast and crew to capture the Giallo look and feel. “I had a full mood board that we put together that I gave to everyone,“ he shares. “I actually sent around a, ‘what is a Giallo film,‘ and a bunch of YouTube homework that people had to do if they had not been familiar with it. The stuff that we had our cinematographer watch was Deep Red, Opera, Blood and Back Lace. Then, I made him watch Knife + Heart and In Fabric to see how you can take elements from Giallo films and use them in a modern setting. For some of the carnival-type stuff, I pulled a few things from Hellfest and from The Last Circus, so we’re influenced by the carny look from some of those films. We didn’t want to go too Rob Zombie, but I wanted to pull some elements that I thought would be cool.”
It’s not just the color palette or whodunnit aspect of the Giallo that Loschiavo pulls from; expect this episode to get bloody as well.
He teases, “We hold ourselves until the last scene, but we have a very graphic finale that we are still layering lots of blood into it in post. But yeah, we’re really excited, I tried very hard to make sure that last scene delivers on the expectations. That’s kind of the theme of the show; we have a slow burn to a big ending in most of the episodes, so I hope that we delivered on all the expectations in the end.“
“Tales from the Void: Starlight” is now streaming on Tubi.
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