Let’s Talk About: The Amazing Screw-On Head

Fresh off the heels of my not so flattering perspective of Hellboy’s history on the silver screen, here I am to talk to you about a brilliant pilot for a would-be Sci-Fi (no, not SyFy) channel original series. A pilot revolving around what I would regard to be one of Mike Mignola’s coolest original creations, The Amazing Screw-On Head. I was moved to revisiting this pilot after checking out Mike’s auction supporting first responders of COVID-19, and I absolutely forgot how stacked this was from it’s cast to its creative leadership.

On voice acting, you got Paul Giamatti voicing Screw-On Head, David Hyde Pierce as the Emperor Zombie, Patton Oswalt as Mr. Groin, Corey Burton playing Abraham Lincoln (also featured on Korgoth of Barbaria), Molly Shannon as Patience, and Mindy Sterling as Aggie and Geraldine. Now how is this for any three people to come together in the development process? You, of course, got Mike Mignola steering the ship with the animation, Hannibal series developer Bryan Fuller as the lead developer/writer. Finally, with director Chris Prynoski comes full in-house support from his famed animation company Titmouse Inc. The amount of star power across the board here for a show that has yet to be picked up is astounding.

If you were ever wondering what putting your history books and your horror movie collection in a cartoon blender looks like, watch it now!

Aside from Paul Giamatti’s best performance period, Emperor zombie is honestly a bit of a masterclass of how to write and perform a villain that can both be hilarious and do evil/weird shit. The overall greatest success to be recognized in The Amazing Screw-On Head pilot is Mike Mignola’s imagination being most accurately represented on screen, which we can credit to him having apparent full control of everything that we see.

The closing line, “We’re coming for you America!” may be a promise that wasn’t kept, but I can at least show my love for The Amazing Screw-On Head making such a promise at all…