Bat Hen Sabag is ready, willing and able to defy expectations with her new eight-episode Israeli horror comedy series Soul Sucker, which she created, wrote and stars in. The show is also a detective mystery and family drama and was inspired, in Sabag’s words, by her “very crazy” family.
Sabag, who was behind the award-winning Israeli series Dumb (remade in Germany as Rampensau), worked on the show with co-creator and director Daphna Levin (In Treatment), who co-created, directed and executive produced Euphoria. Prominent Israeli genre filmmaker Aharon Keshales served as script editor.
Dori Media Group, the company behind the likes of Dumb, Losing Alice, Lalola, Rebelde, and The New Black that is led by president and CEO Nadav Palti, hosted a premiere screening of Soul Sucker, set to launch on cable outlet Hot in Israel later this year, at MIP London on Tuesday.
“The inspiration is from my family,” Sabag tells THR. “I always like to talk about and explore my family through my work and my writing. And I know people like to say that their families are crazy. But mine really is very, very, very, very crazy.”
The creative didn’t start out with a horror comedy in mind. Instead, she wanted to explore some of the Romanian part of her family and its “legacy of very dominant women,” she explains. “I imagined this as a gypsy comedy because we have gypsy roots in Romania. … I wanted to talk about the women in my family who are very dominant and crazy, maybe have a little bit of witches. And when I started digging into my family, I began to understand that this can also be a story about the universal fear that many women have of becoming our mothers.”
That also spoke to Levin, who felt audiences around the globe will recognize that worry. “Every daughter has a mother. So this fear of becoming your mother is universal,” she tells THR. “I think every woman in the world probably knows it.”
The horror elements came naturally to Sabag. “I love horror movies and used to watch a lot of horror movies when I was a child, so I wanted to mix that with comedy,” she shares. “People always want to say, ‘Oh, this is horror and this is comedy.’ I fought hard and told [people] they sit together and speak together.”
Keshales was sold on working on the project based on the core idea. “When she pitched it to me, she talked about wanting to make a Twin Peaks in Ashkelon,” he tells THR. “And I though okay, I need to be a part of that, because Twin Peaks is one of my favorite shows. And, well, Israel has a lot of characters that could be in Twin Peaks.”
Ashkelon, Sabag and Levin explain, is near Tel Aviv and is rundown and neglected, despite its natural beauty. “It’s a beautiful, beautiful beach town that could be really nice,” Levin says. “It has a lot of potential, but the beach is empty,” adds Sabag.
Before working on Soul Sucker, Keshales worked mainly on male-focused horror films, so he says he was ready when Sabag said she had a female-focused project. “When Bat said she has something for women, I said, ‘Okay, tell me the story.’ She mentioned the fear women have of becoming their mothers and that there may be this curse in the family,” he shares. “That’s what lured me in. And I said that’s something that I would like to tap into. So, then we worked together on the storylines.”
The creatives decided to have two key plot lines going on at the same time. “One is that of [Sabag’s character] Avi who is trying to figure out if there is a curse in my family that’s killing all the men,” says Keshales. “And the other storyline is that of the cop, Claudie, her friend from childhood.”
That female cop is played by actress Kineret Limoni. “I fell in love with her in a play in the theater, and I went crazy for her,” Sabag recalls. “And I wanted to write a part for her. It started with me imagining her voice and her look. And I added in some motives that I took from a cousin.”
Part of the cop character and the protagonists’ difficult relationship is Sabag’s own experience hearing as a 10-year-old that she may be a bad influence. “This series actually examines this fear of mine that I might be destructive,” she shares. “I guess all the characters that I write myself are that kind of alter ego. It’s basically treatment.”
Dori CEO Palti expressed confidence in the show’s appeal ahead of MIP London. “Soul Sucker is unlike any other series we’ve taken out to the international marketplace,” he said. “It is a comedy, a detective mystery, a family drama and a horror series all wrapped together in a program that you simply cannot take your eyes off.”
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