“I hadn’t ever seen a slasher series in the UK. America and Canada have a lot of horror shows and they’re always the biggest thing on TV [American Horror Story, The Walking Dead and Stranger Things are good examples]. But in the UK,” he says, “there’s a definite snobbery in the mainstream press against horror. I think it’s because genre … is such a subjective thing.”
A malevolent killer is disguised as a duck in Wreck.Credit: ABC
There’s gore in Wreck that Brown says has had viewers messaging him in horror at his horror: “Some people can’t even look.” But then for others, it’s no big thing. What makes this kind of buddy show fly or fall is the characters, and it’s here that Wreck excels: six episodes per series gives us ample time to get to know Jamie, his new friend and soon ally Vivian (Thaddea Graham), Olly (Anthony Rickman) and Danny (Jack Rowan).
They’re the kinds of characters who are often thinly drawn in horror movies; here, they’re a group you want to be in with, which is the first hurdle for any YA ensemble. The two leads are also queer: part of Brown’s achievement with Wreck has been to create a queer show that “pushes my Big Gay Agenda,” as he puts it, without it ever feeling like you’re being pushed.
“Although their identities inform who they are, and actually make them the perfect kind of people to tackle the nightmarish scenario in Wreck, the show isn’t about that,” says Brown. Jamie and Viv are defined by their friendship as much as their identity, he adds.
“I think we need more of that on TV, to be honest. It happens so rarely. It’s nice to have a male/female friendship at the forefront of a show that isn’t a romantic one. I mean how often do you have a gay man and a lesbian best friend in a genre show?”
What brings Jamie and Viv together in series one is the setting. The cruise ship, as hellishly as it is portrayed, is the perfect crucible for disparate people to meet each other. Not that you would ever want to go on one after a single episode of Wreck.
Wreck creator Ryan J. Brown: “I wanted to do a slasher series and … push my Big Gay Agenda”.
“I did such a deep dive on research into the cruise industry,” says Brown, “And that world is so murky, it’s actually unbelievable. The things they get away with … the exploitation of the workers aboard the ships, as well as the crime that happens on board … so much goes unreported.”
Perfect for a murder-mystery, though. For season two, Brown takes his cast into another sub-genre and deliciously questionable space: a Wellness festival.
“That’s another sort of trillion-dollar industry, much like the cruise world, and our gang get wind of something not quite right about it all by speaking to a whistleblower. Sure enough, something terrible is happening at this Wellness festival, similarly to the cruise ships.”
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Will it involve Quacky the duck, the most malevolent angry bird since the iPhone app? Brown can’t possibly tell us. But he does reveal that the Wellness festival tribe is led by a sinister guru called Devon Devereux, played by our own Niamh Walsh (The Sandman).
“I can’t name names, but you can probably imagine who inspired that character,” he says.
I tell him I’ll take a big, goopy guess.
Wreck (season two) is on ABC Entertain, Wednesday, 8.30pm. Season one is on iview.
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