Clockwise from
above: Detective
L (Keith Stanfield)
tracks down Light
Turner (Nat Wolff);
Light comes
face-to-face with
demon Ryuk
(voiced by Willem
Dafoe); Adam Wingard
with Masi Oka — who
also produces — on set;
Light opens the
sinister tome.
THE SETTING FOR the final act of Adam
Wingard’s take on Death Note looks disarmingly
jolly. A funfair runs the length of the boardwalk
pier jutting out into Vancouver’s Fraser River, its
brightly lit rides looking inviting. But if the
movies have taught us anything, it’s that funfairs
are rarely as innocent as they appear. And, true to
form, as night closes in, menace descends.
Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley thread
their way through the throng of punters, their
anxious glances making it clear that someone
— or something — is on their tail. Behind them
two figures, expressions steely, move purposefully
through the crowd. In a moment, this quaint
little tableau has edged inexorably into darkness.
“The three movies I watched before we started
shooting,” says Wingard, “were Seven, Blade
Runner and The French Connection.”
Boasting a huge cult following thanks to
manga, anime and live-action versions, Death
Note centres on an ancient book that allows its
owner to bump off anyone they choose — simply
by writing their name in it. When the tome falls
into the hands of high-school loner Light Turner
(Wolff), his crusade to clean up the streets
attracts the attention of both a private eye and
the book’s creator, Ryuk — a seven-foot tall,
leather-clad demon voiced by Willem Dafoe and
rendered in CGI (think Kabuki Ziggy Stardust).
“I wasn’t familiar with the manga,” says
Wolff. “What excited me was that Light is
basically a serial killer, but you’re on his side.
We’d like to think we’d never use a death note,
but we’ve all got a few names that would go in.”
Originally developed at Warner Bros., the
project moved to Netflix after Wingard sensed
his dark vision was being steered into more
family-friendly waters. “It meant we could have
a lot more fun and add some super-gory death
scenes,” says the Blair Witch director. “We’re at
a WTF-rating right now: real Takashi Miike Ichi
The Killer stuff.” Quite a heady stylistic mix,
then: kind of David Fincher-meets-Yakuza-style
hyper-violence? “Sure. But it’s also a tragic teen
romance,” adds Wingard. “With a glam rock
death god hanging around.” Noted.The death-wish J-horror is
gorily rebooted, courtesy of
Blair Witch’s Adam WingardWORDS SIMON BRAUNDKILL LIST
ON-SET
EXCLUSIVEDEATH NOTE
OUT 25 AUGUST
NETFLIX