“Head” on over to the SciFi Channel website and watch the commercial free unedited version of Mike Mignola’s The Amazing Screw-on Head. This 22 minute animation is a great combination of horror and comedy done in the incredible style Mignola made famous with his Hellboy series. If you like this kind of stuff and want to see more, make sure you fill out the online survey so SciFi will produce more of this stuff.
Here’s your spoilerific look at the pilot.
The pilot follows fairly close to the comic by Mignola and Dark Horse Comics, as it follow Screw-on Head in his efforts to stop Emperor Zombie from opening the vault of Gung the Magnificent and releasing the demon within.
Expanded in the pilot is the relationship with Screw-on Head and his man servant Groin, a “fleshing out” so to speak on the relationship between all of the characters, and a virtual rewrite of the location of the vault of Gung the Magnificent.
Instead of being located in the Aswam Valley (as depicted in the comic), the temple is buried beneath the Mississippi river. Why you ask? Simple. In this series Screw-on Head is protecting the United States from all sorts of ghoulies roaming in the unexplored and vastly vacant range land. Because previous civilizations have left their mark on the land, Lincoln signs the Homestead Act giving Screw-on Head a reason to go ‘splorin’.
It is unclear from the pilot if Emperor Zombie will continue to be a foil for Screw-on Head, as he is last seen sinking to the bottom of the river. However Madame, the cannibal, the werewolf lady, and the chimp make their escape.
My reaction to the whole thing? While it has been a while since I read The Amazing Screw-on Head, I found the SciFi pilot to be quite enjoyable, and look forward to seeing it in the regular SciFi line up.
Don’t forget to check the pilot out and then take the survey for the show to continue!
