Echo Johnson tattoos people in his tiny room at the Tierra Chula Resident Hotel (aka “The Tarantula”). His best friend Lucas Reed writes sci-fi stories with titles like Ultimate Erotic Castle . They may not have money (The Tarantula is a flophouse), but they have their own sense of dignity, honor and art. They may be barflies and indigents, but the characters in Carson Mell’s web series Tarantula are far from down-and-out.
Tarantula only has nine episodes, each just a few minutes long. But over a scant few dozen minutes, viewers will experience adventures both mundane and extranormal, whether its Echo guiding you through his belt buckle collection or Lucas catching dreams with slices of pizza. There’s nothing quite like it. And soon it will be on TV, Deadline announced. TBS has put in a series order for a primetime, animated version of Tarantula, with a premiere date set for 2017.
Check out the first episode of the Tarantula web series if you’re curious what’s in store:
It’s hard to imagine how such a strange and bite-sized web series will work with a longer runtime, but Tarantula creator Carson Mell has the background to make it work. Mell is a writer for Silicon Valley and the writer/director of Another Evil, a VOD horror movie you have to watch (check out our interview with Mell and Mark Proksch, who plays a ghost hunter unlike any other in cinema history). The series will be executive produced by Danny McBride, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green and Brandon James, all of whom worked with Mell on Eastbound & Down.
You can watch every episode of Tarantula on Carson Mell’s YouTube page.
