British independent film company Ghost Dog Films, who have already branched into graphic novels and video games, have now produced a first ebook and audiobook.

It’s based on Ghost Dog’s 2019 film Crucible of the Vampire, which also spawned the excellent graphic novel, which I featured previously.

The story – set in a spooky old manor house – lends itself well to a book-style format, and the novelisation by multi-talented producer Amanda Murray expands on the film and graphic versions with more detail and new scenes.

Crucible of the Vampire was originally conceived and developed as a feature film by Ghost Dog Films. The script was written by Iain Ross-McNamee, John Wolskel and Darren Lake.

It was shot on location in Shropshire in spring 2016 and starred Katie Goldfinch, Neil Morrissey, Larry Rew and Florence Cady.

“With a film, there’s always a limitation with time and budget not only when you’re shooting but also in the final edit process. With an audiobook or indeed a book, you can elaborate on ideas, take the time to develop your characters, include incidents that were cut from the actual production and of course add in new elements to flesh out your story and let it breathe.

“When we decided to take the film and turn it into an audiobook, there were plenty of advantages to writing it. Firstly, all the locations and characters were in existence already.

“Visually I could draw upon the performances and physicality of the actors as well as having an intimate knowledge of the locations used. Not only could I see the buildings and scenes from photographs and footage but I had spent long hours
on set so I knew the locations intimately, especially the old mansion that we used as Ashwell Hall”.

The audiobook is narrated by acclaimed voice actor Gemma Lawrence, and Amanda tells me she’s “super happy with how it’s turned out”.

So she should be! This is a terrific way to build on an excellent story, which harks back to Hammer films and the British folk horror tradition.

The audiobook is for sale on around 40 retail platforms, and you can watch a trailer here.

There are also some samples on Soundcloud.

Ghost Dog’s latest film, I Saw Black Clouds. was released as an interactive game earlier this year, with the movie itself to follow.

If you’re involved in film or any area of arts and entertainment, please check out the services of Weltch Media here.