Safehaven: Comics lead to horrific places in new series

The upcoming series Safehaven will explore what happens when a high-schooler’s drawings start to take on a life of their own.

Shudder’s Random Acts of Violence posited what would happen if the pages of an ultra-violent comic book started to manifest in the real world. Now, the upcoming series Safehaven will explore the life of a high-school cartoonist with a similar problem.

Deadline has the early info on this intriguing enterprise:

"“Safehaven follows Jenna Frost (Belle Shouse), a high school comic book artist who must uncover hidden truths after horrifying visions from her drawings come to life threatening everyone around her.”"

Safehaven will also star True Blood’s Stephen Moyer. While Shouse and co-star Antonio Cipriano are relatively new talent, Safehaven will appeal to fans of Moyer, who made a name for himself as a sympathetic vampire in the HBO long-running series.

Whereas most TV series cycle through different writers and directors with each episode and season, the advent of the “limited” series has brought an interesting approach to this form of storytelling. For instance, the first season of True Detective was an exclusive collaboration between director Cary Fukunaga and writer Nic Pizzolatto. Twin Peaks: The Return had David Lynch directing and co-writing all 18 episodes with Mark Frost.

The end results of those two series was a sense of consistency in style, storytelling and characterization.

So while Safehaven, based on the synopsis, may seem a bit geared toward a tween audience, there’s a good chance that the story progression will be fluid and consistent in the hands of director Brad Turner and writer James Seale, who are responsible for all 10 episodes of the series’ first season.

Turner has flourished in TV since 1987, with episodes of The Outer Limits reboot and the early-2000s Twilight Zone under his belt. Seale, meanwhile, is writing and directing the upcoming thriller 30 Below.

Safehaven will begin production in Louisiana in January 2021.

Were you a fan of True Blood? Let us know if you will be tuning into Stephen Moyer’s new series, Safehaven in the comments.