Rewind of the Living Dead

Working on a tiny budget didn’t allow director Anthony DiBlasi and co-writer Scott Polley to do everything they wanted when making the 2014 film “Last Shift” but they never imagined that there would be a return to that same world less than 10 years later.  A new production company called Welcome Villain launched with producer Luke LeBeau pitching the duo on the idea of revisiting “Last Shift” — th...

After cutting his teeth under legendary horror writer Clive Barker, Anthony DeBlasi struck out on his own looking to become a director while developing his own style behind the camera.  DeBlasi eventually made his directorial debut with the film “Dread,” which was based on a short story of the same name by Barker. It wasn’t until a few years later that DeBlasi came up with an idea about a self-con...

Horror remakes are almost as much of a staple of the genre as sequels so it was no real surprise that studios started mining lower budget films made by iconic directors with the chance to do it all over again — this time with more money.  Paramount Pictures took that exact step after optioning a remake of the 1973 film called “The Crazies” by director George A. Romero. Scott Kosar, who had previou...

In 2013, Naughty Dog — a video game developer — unleashed “The Last of Us” on Playstation to critical acclaim and huge sales at stores. The game sold over 1.3 million copies in the first week and less than a year after the game was released a film adaptation was already in the works.  Unfortunately, just two years later the film was languishing in development hell and the rights to the adaptation...

After original “Scream” creator Kevin Williamson split with the franchise following the fourth film in the series, the team at Radio Silence — a group comprised of Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — pitched an idea for a fifth sequel that ultimately went onto find great success while helping to reinvigorate the series that laid dormant for over 10 years. “Scream 5” had barely...

When Kevin Williamson was originally writing a script he called “Scary Movie,” he was so nervous about handing it over to his agent that he immediately began penning the opening scene to a potential sequel.  After sending those pages over to his agent, the idea struck them that they were no longer just selling a script to a studio — there were introducing them to a franchise. The film eventually b...

The 1980s were a haven for horror cinema and that’s what led to exploitation and hardcore pornography filmmaker Dick Randall and Italian producer Roberto Loyola to get together and write a script for a movie under the pen name “John Shadow.”  The end result was a project called “Jigsaw” that eventually landed in the hands of director Juan Piquer Simon, who had just recently been approached to helm...

Found footage films in horror go back many years with the controversial movie “Cannibal Holocaust” credited as one of the first to come to prominence.  It wasn’t until 1999 when “The Blair Witch Project” landed in theaters that found footage horror films truly exploded in popularity with audiences even going as far as questioning if what they were watching might actually be real and not a work of...

Famed special effects technician Robert Kurtzman — best known for his work on films such as “Evil Dead 2” and “Night of the Creeps” — developed a story for a movie he wanted to make but he soon realized he didn’t quite have the chops to actually write it.  So he hired a young filmmaker named Quentin Tarantino to take on that job. Tarantino had started earning buzz around Hollywood for his “True Ro...

Author Paul Tremblay had already received international acclaim for his past books including “A Head Full of Ghosts,” which earned the 2015 Bram Stoker Award for best novel.  In 2018, Tremblay unleashed his newest work called “A Cabin at the End of the World” — an apocalyptic yet intimate tale about faith, belief and the end of the world. It didn’t take long for Hollywood to get interested in an a...

Writer and director Brandon Cronenberg has developed a style of his own that seamlessly blends elements of horror and science fiction as evidenced in past films such as “Possessor” and “Antiviral.”  He was working on a story revolving around human clones and using them to stand in for executions when he remembered a particularly off putting vacation that led him to an entirely new idea. Cronenberg...

After attending the American Film Institute and receiving critical acclaim for a pair of short films he wrote and directed, Ari Aster was suddenly getting opportunities in Hollywood but after several feature length scripts got rejected, he decided to turn his attention back to horror — a genre he loved growing up but fundamentally avoided with his writing despite constantly focusing on bleak and d...

Kevin Williamson — best known as the screenwriter behind the original “Scream” as well as films such as “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “The Faculty” — was looking for a setting for a new slasher movie but he wasn’t sure if tackling a subject as serious as the COVID-19 global pandemic was something he should explore.  Previous attempts to set films during the pandemic had largely failed but...

Prolific writer and director James Wan has plenty of experience with terrifying dolls because you have to look no further than his signature series “The Conjuring” to find Annabelle staring back at you.  But Wan wasn’t looking for another haunted doll when he came up with the idea for a premise centered around “embracing technology too much” and “what happens when technology runs amok.”  That was...

Italian horror have often been revered or considered revolting by audiences all over the world. Famed directors like Dario Argento have built rabid fanbases centered around the stylized way many directors from the European country color a canvas with blood.  Lucio Fulci — who was nicknamed the “Godfather of Gore” — was one of the most beloved directors of Italian horror films with his work on movi...

Following a global pandemic, movie theaters were still struggling to pack in audiences but two genres — along with Tom Cruise flying a jet — proved resilient in the face of falling box office numbers — superhero movies and horror films.  Week after week, critics were stunned at the staggering returns on horror films at the box office including a feature called “Smile” that wasn’t even supposed to...

There was a time when studios would actually accept screenplay ideas from the general public and that’s how producer Scott Schiend got his hands on a short story entitled “He Sees You When You’re Sleeping,” which was written by a Harvard student named Paul Caimi.  The story centered around a killer Santa Claus and the concept was interesting enough that Schiend decided to develop it into a film. ...

When Wes Craven first terrified audiences by unleashing dream demon Freddy Krueger in 1984, no one could have predicted that his film that had to scrape together financing just to get made would ultimately become one of the most successful horror franchises of all time. In the nearly 40 years since the first film was released, the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series has spawned nine total movies whil...

The idea for a movie pitting Freddy Krueger against Jason Voorhees actually dates all the back to 1987 when New Line Cinema and Paramount Pictures started talking about a crossover film following the success of “Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors” and “Friday the 13 the Part VI: Jason Lives.”  Sadly, neither studio wanted to give up rights to the other character to make the film so the...

Writer David Kajganich had worked on several horror screenplays throughout his career including the critically acclaimed 2018 remake of “Suspiria” but even he was surprised when he was approached about adapting Camile DeAngelis’ book about a pair of lovestruck teenagers who both happen to be afflicted with the same instinct to consume human flesh while in the midst of a coming of age story.  It wa...

Writer Will Tracy, who counts shows like “Last Week Tonight” and “Succession” among his credits on IMDB, was on his honeymoon in Norway when he started exploring the best options for dinner as a certified foodie.  What he discovered was a private dining location on an island where a boat was required to pick you up and drop you off for a five-hour experience where the chef and staff prepared an el...

Following the development of the “Friday the 13th” remake, Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company announced plans to take on another franchise with a remake of the 1984 classic “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”  The idea behind the remake was taking the “Nightmare” franchise back to its roots as a much scarier film rather than the version that had been duplicated in recent years where an...

When Wes Craven contemplated returning to the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise for the third film in the series, he pitched an idea for a story where Freddy Krueger crossed over to invade the real world where he would begin haunting the actors from the movies.  The studio declined that version of the film but Craven never forgot his idea. Six years later after it appeared the “Nightmare” series...

After writing and directing his debut film in 2012, Andrew Semans worked on a screenplay for a new idea that centered around a single mother battling against feelings of fear and paranoia when it came time to protect her child.  The screenplay ended up on the infamous Black List — an annual group of the most liked scripts that haven’t been picked up or produced by a major studio.  Numerous award w...

Following the release of his first short film, writer and director Damien Leone began developing a script centered around an evil slasher named Art the Clown who would battle it out with a heroine wearing an angel costume.  The idea got scrapped before Leone eventually released the film “Terrifier,” which brought Art the Clown to life in a graphic, blood-soaked movie that definitely got the attent...