TROIKA TAKES THRILLER “KING RIPPLE” INTO POST
Published in Reel Chicago, March 2015
In December, director Luke Jaden finished production on “King Ripple,” a post-apocalyptic thriller about four friends who unwittingly fall prey to a blood curdling villain in the frozen grime of an industrial slum during the dead of winter.
It is the fourth film completed by Troika, the production company Jaden launched with two partners last year, and the first feature length screenplay by Josh Malerman, author of the 2011 best-selling horror novel, “Bird Box.”
Shot in the abandoned factory neighborhoods of Jaden’s native Detroit, the director describes “King Ripple” as a “Stand By Me” kind of adventure by way of a David Lynch kind of vehicle.
“The friends have heard all these legends about this man named Ripple who lives in this decrepit urban waste land,” he explains. “Their parents have warned them not to go.”
“As they are brought forth by this being that they hoped to find, really surreal things happen to each of them.”
Jaden first explained the plot to Malerman on the set of “Not Well,” a short that the pair completed in 2013.
Spilling over with phrases like “teenagers coming of age… elements of surreality…. moments of suspense… fantasy thriller… dream and reality,” his description launched a yearlong remote collaboration between the Chicago-based director and the Detroit-based writer.
“I was like a roadrunner,” Jaden recalls. “Sending him words and terms and themes and random pages of things I was thinking on Facebook and in texts nonstop. What if the teenagers get lost? What if their parents got translated into an alternate universe?”
Malerman’s knack for conjuring terror out of thin air made the perfect filter for the pile of context coming out of the Jaden’s mind. In his first novel, 2014’s “Bird Box,” he maintains a Hitchcockian level of suspense that has won critical praise and thousands of fans throughout the English speaking world, including nominations for the 2015 Bram Stoker and Jamese Herbert awards.
As Jaden supplied more and more material, Malerman took the strongest parts and built the “dreamy, nightmarish, inspirational and bizarre” story that had been festering in the director’s imagination for years.
Malerman also dialed up the buzz by spreading it among a diverse fan base of his own. In addition to his writing fame, he is lead singer for the band The High Strung, which performs the theme song for the Showtime series, “Shameless.”
Actor Keith Stanfield stars as the eponymous, fear mongering character behind all the horror in “King Ripple.” His most recent roles include political activist Jimmie Lee Jackson in the Oscar-nominated “Selma” and Snoop Dogg in upcoming NWA biopic, “Straight Outta Compton.”
Jaden concluded that “Keith is the only person who can bring King Ripple to reality” after viewing Stanfield’s Spirt Award-nominated performance in “Short Term 12.” He sent Stanfield’s manager a copy of the script and a few weeks later Stanfield was on the set.
“Everything he did with the character was absolutely mindblowing,” Jaden explains. “At times filled with melancholy, at times happy and joyful, at times with tears rolling down his face, he can be your friend one minute and stab you the next.”
“King Ripple” is currently being edited by Beast – Detroit’s Adam Tillon. It is scheduled for releast this summer.