The BBC Three horror series Red Rose explores how smartphones and the online world can affect people’s lives in the most terrifying way. We caught up with the writers, Michael and Paul Clarkson to find out what inspired the idea and setting as well as what the Horror genre can offer to writers.
How did you get the idea for Red Rose?
Michael: We’ve always carried in our minds Bolton. We were actually in a meeting for Hollyoaks and when they said ‘Have you got anything else?’ we said ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got something like Scream, it’s set in Bolton, Scream and The Ring. Paul just looked at me and was like ‘Yeah, and it’s teenagers’. I think it was always in us, it just became real all of a sudden.
I think it’s zeitgeist as well. There were elements of discussions going on about rogue apps on phones and for us it just felt right to unite the two.
Often writers run away from technology in the horror genre because it’s about ‘Oh there’s no signal, great, start the film. Oh the phone’s destroyed great, we don’t have to deal with that’. But we were ‘No, let’s run headlong into this instead’.
Also in horror when people are like ‘But you could just call someone’ it’s like ‘Sorry, but in my experience of technology it never works when you want it to’.
We wanted to highlight how easily technology can intercept things because it’s already doing that, so for us it seemed that as soon as we started saying it – you know when you’re a storyteller you’re like ‘Oh, this can actually work’.
We consulted an expert who works on technology – a top-brain coder – and asked ‘Is this real, could this happen?’ and they were like ‘Yeah’ and explained why.
Taz (ALI KHAN); Jaya (ASHNA RABHERU); Ashley (NATALIE BLAIR); Wren (AMELIA CLARKSON); Antony (ELLIS HOWARD); Noah (HARRY REDDING). Photo Credit: BBC/Eleven Film
What does the Horror genre give to you as storytellers?
Paul: It gives you the opportunity to showcase the best and worst of humanity and allow you to explore them in a safe way that feels removed from reality but actually informs on reality so much. It should teach us elements about ourselves. The best horror teaches you stuff about humanity. It allows you to highlight the difficulties of whatever your themes are. For us, the effect of technology on society. Each generation has its main things that it has to navigate and at the moment, similarly to when anything new arrives, it takes a few generations for people to catch and become aware and indeed to know how to navigate it. We’re still working out how to deal with the internet, with the truth, with how humans are more connected now than ever before but also feel more disconnected.
Michael: And generational damage and having to deal with that. Horror is so interesting when you put the younger generation in because they don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve to be in those scenarios – but something older, or something before their time or something that is just steps ahead of them in life can usually become a force to turn their world into darkness.
Everything evolves, including stories in the way that they are told. Twenty years ago the genre of horror would be explicitly jump scares but it’s not just that now.
Rochelle (ISIS HAINSWORTH). Photo Credit: BBC/Eleven Film
What are some of the influences on Red Rose?
Michael: I always come back to Scream. Kevin Williamson’s screenplay was so smart. He was prepared to redefine genre and tackle it head on and make it real. He brought in realism and made it self-aware. There are so many lessons that we’ve learnt from that.
Paul: We also learnt so much from Mike Flanagan and working with him (on The Haunting of Bly Manor) about how you can blend different elements together to create a more compelling story. Everything that we love has a bit of everything in it, so we wanted to use a bit of comedy, a bit of drama, a bit of horror, a bit of nonsense at points because that is our lives – that is life, reality is all of the genres, we don’t want to play in just one. So even though we’re under the umbrella of horror, the horror feels more horrific when you’ve just felt reality.
Wren (AMELIA CLARKSON), Ashley (NATALIE BLAIR), Taz (ALI KHAN), Noah (HARRY REDDING), Antony (ELLIS HOWARD). Photo Credit: BBC/Eleven Film
Why was it so important for you that the show is set in Bolton?
Michael: I think any hometown that anyone has grown up in, if it’s done its job, will become a character in their life. It’s because it’s got this beautiful combination of the moors and the town, it’s got real voices and real people.
Rochelle (ISIS HAINSWORTH);Wren (AMELIA CLARKSON);Ramón Salazar, Production Crew. Photo Credit: BBC/Eleven Film
Michael and Paul took BBC Three to some of the most important spots in Bolton to share their love of their Northern hometown and talk about the importance of opportunities for young, working-class people.