Hemlock Grove – Trivia you won’t find on IMDB
| July 3, 2013 at 3:26 PM EDTThe Hemlock Grove trivia page on IMDB is fairly short and disappointing, especially for a show this mysterious. So we’ve written our own trivia page about the series. Enjoy!
Hemlock Grove Trivia Basics – Plain Tomato Salsa Level
Executive produced by Eli Roth.
Developed by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman.
Produced by Gaumont International Television.
The series stars Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgård, Landon Liboiron, Dougray Scott, Penelope Mitchell and Freya Tingley.
Bill Skarsgard as Roman Godfrey
Based on Brian McGreevy’s novel of the same time. This book was released in March of 2012. The series premiered in April of 2013. The book has 318 pages. (Which usually gives you about 2 hours of video for a movie.)
Season one has 13 episodes.
There will be a season 2, also released on Netflix. On June 19, 2013, Netflix renewed Hemlock Grove for a second season of 10 episodes to air in 2014.
Landon Liborion as Peter
Premiered on Netflix on April 19, 2013.
Hemlock Grove Trivia – Medium Salsa Level
The book took six years to write, and was rejected by 6 publishers and 8 agents.
The series is more of an ensemble piece than what comes across in the book. This is to accommodate for having 13 episodes to flesh out a book of 300-something pages.
The book was heavily influenced by Greek Mythology.
Freya Tingley as Christina
Episodes range from 45 to 58 minutes, much longer than hour-long TV shows are.
Hemlock Grove is a fictional town in Pennsylvania.
The series has been compared to Twin Peaks.
Nathan Barr composes music for the series. He also composes music for HBO’s True Blood.
As a Netflix original series, the show had no ratings board or advertisers to please. This meant there was no censorship in the creative process.
In an coverage by ShockYouTillYouDrop.com, they reported that the writing staff watched horror movies for inspiration, like: Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining, Silence of the Lambs, The Cabin in the Woods and The Vanishing (1988.)
Hemlock Grove Trivia – “Holy Crap” Hot Salsa Level
Filmed in the Cinespace Film Studios Toronto and Port Perry Ontario. Brian McGreevy fought for the series to be filmed in Pittsburgh, but confusion over how the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit worked led to the switch to Canada. Other locations used:St Clair and Yonge at the Deer Park United Church in Toronto, Hamilton Cemetery in Ontario. Hemlock Grove High School was filmed at Ursula Franklin Academy/ Western Technical Commercial School in Toronto.
Niamh Wilson plays the look of “Normal Shelley” and also plays the voice of Shelley.
Letha and Peter
Eli Roth stated that this show is meant to be watched in marathon-style, four or five episodes in a day.
Warning – More Major Hemlock Grove Spoilers Below
Bill Skarsgard plays a vampire on Hemlock Grove, and his brother, Alexander Skarsgard, also plays a vampire on the TV series True Blood.
Olivia was impregnated by a gypsy, and gave the baby away to a swineherd family of the name of Rumancek. That family descended from her, and she is centuries old.
The entire book is told within season 1 of Hemlock Grove.
In the book, Shelley is dead at the end. On the show, we don’t know what happened to her. (And she’ll probably show up again.)
In March 2012, McGreevy released a graphic novel online that worked as a prequel to Hemlock Grove the novel. It is called Hemlock Grove: Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire. In it, you see events that happen before JR Godfrey dies.
Bill Skarsgard as Roman Godfrey
Shelley was created from the remains of the first child, Juliet.
The word Ouroboros is an ancient sort of symbol that indicates self-reflection and/or cycles.
I know how the birds fly, how the fishes swim, how animals run. But there is the Dragon. I cannot tell how it mounts on the winds through the clouds and flies through heaven. Today I have seen the Dragon.
~ Confucius, after meeting Lao-Tze, founder of Taoism
Famke Janssen as Olivia Godfrey
Olivia eats the caul off of Roman, but what does that mean? When a baby is born like that, their amniotic sac (a bag of waters) and even some membrane is covering the head. Often, people refer to the child as a “caulbearer.” European folklore says the child is then born with the gift, such as a natural ability to be psychic. Usually, it is seen as good luck, and others’ would want to buy the caul for that luck. (It was said that those with a caul could not drown, so sailors wanted them.) In other European and Croatian countries the sign of a caul was also the sign of a vampire being born. It could also mean the soul was damned. Most countries have a different explanation for the caul. Babies born with cauls would have it taken away before they could eat it.
Upon learning he was to play a vampire, Bill Skarsgard wanted to turn down Hemlock Grove on account of his brother playing one on True Blood.
Penelope Mitchell (Letha) majored in Gothic Literature during school, so she was already well aware of the themes and social dynamics that would be explored in Hemlock Grove.
Freya Tingley as Christina
Laurie Fortier says there is an Easter Egg hidden in episode 13. It’s a shot of Project Ouroboros (the floating baby.)
Kabalarians.com name meanings are very accurate for these characters:
Peter – Independent, loyal, blunt
Roman – Clever mind, idealistic and sensitive, often moody, secretive
Letha – Responsible and capable, honest, a worrier
Christina – Creative, full of original ideas
Is there important Hemlock Grove trivia you’d like us to add to this comprehensive list? Just leave a comment below!
Hemlock Grove Questions still Unanswered
- Are all upirs (vampires) born with tails like Olivia was?
- Do vampires only stop aging once they are adults?
- Why do the vampires eat the caul?
- What is the drug Olivia was always putting in her eyes? (It seemed to curb her vampiric killing impulses.)
- If Peter didn’t arrive until after the first girl was killed, how did Christina kill her? (She wasn’t yet a werewolf.)
- What is Project Ouroboros? (It must have to do with bringing back the dead.)
- Is Olivia dead? (Maybe, we can’t know for sure.)
- What was the whole deal about Christina and the Bessemer? (It just scared her?)
- Was Roman meant to eat his baby, or to eat the caul?
- Why did Olivia want Roman and Letha to have a child together? (Or was Olivia not responsible?)
- Why did Olivia raise Shelley instead of killing her?
- Why isn’t Peter’s Mother a werewolf?
- Why did Roman suddenly stop being in love with Letha?
- How could Peter tell that Roman was an umpir?
- Why doesn’t Peter have a cell phone?
- Why did Peter think he needed SO MUCH bacon grease when he hardly used any?
- Does Roman have a tail?
- Why was Letha sleeping on the couch of her own house?!
- What was the price Christina paid for turning on the wrong moon? Was it her hair, or her sanity? Both?
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