Bram Stoker’s gothic horror novel “Dracula,” which was first released in 1897, has been adapted across film and television for decades. From a version portrayed in “Nosferatu” to Bela Lugosi’s iconic performance and Christopher Lee’s chilling take on the character, Dracula has remained a relevant piece of pop culture for more than 100 years. So it’s no surprise that Universal was looking to revamp a monstrous line of films based on characters like Dracula but it was actually Robert Kirkman, best...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 31 min
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” — this time with a bigger budget, which would allow them to tell a bigger story. DiBlasi debated if he wa...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 54 min
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-contained horror film centered around a police dispatcher in a small town, who was all alone and trapped...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 22 min
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 previously worked on the remakes of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Amityville Horror” was hired to write...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 29 min
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 eventually reverted back to original creator Neil Druckmann. Then in 2019, Druckmann was introduced t...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 20 min
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 been in theaters for two weeks when a sequel was ordered with a release date already attached for M...
Mar 15, 2023•1 hr 31 min
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 became “Scream” and after a massive opening month in theaters, Miramax executives were frothing at the...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 46 min
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 “The Last House on the Left” sequel but he passed because he felt the script was too boring. That’s ...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 7 min
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 fiction. It was from that movie that up and coming filmmaker Robbie Banfitch was inspired to make his...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 33 min
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 Romance” and “Natural Born Killers” scripts but at the time he was still jockeying a register at a loca...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 22 min
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 adaptation with the original writers behind a screenplay reaching out to famed director M. Night Shyam...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 50 min
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 had traveled to an all-inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic where the visitors were bussed in ...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 9 min
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 dreary material. What started as a film centered around a family tragedy and the trauma involved with...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 47 min
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 he was inspired by other genre filmmakers like Jordan Peele, who have used movies to tackle hard-hitt...
Jan 18, 2023•1 hr 30 min
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 the spark of an idea that was handed over to screenwriter Akela Cooper, who had previously worked with...
Jan 11, 2023•1 hr 30 min
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 movies such as” “Zombi 2” and “City of the Living Dead.” In 1982, Fulci released what would become one of...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 19 min
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 earn a theatrical release yet it went onto gross more than $216 million worldwide to make it the high...
Dec 28, 2022•2 hr 10 min
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. Under the working title “Slayride,” numerous directors were targeted to lead the film including Sam Ra...
Dec 21, 2022•1 hr 21 min
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 while earning more than $474 million at the box office. The series also managed to create one of the mos...
Dec 14, 2022•2 hr 9 min
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 ambitious plans fell to the wayside. Talks about putting the two slasher icons into a single movie c...
Dec 07, 2022•1 hr 51 min
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 was unlike anything he’d ever been asked to write before but after talking to the author, Kajganich was...
Nov 30, 2022•1 hr 12 min
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 elaborate meal for an exclusive set of clientele. That was all the inspiration Tracy needed to return t...
Nov 23, 2022•1 hr 26 min
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 antagonist Freddy Krueger was defined by “cracking jokes” and making one-liners before killing his vict...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 23 min
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 was all but dead and buried, Craven returned with a similar pitch while promising to return Freddy t...
Nov 09, 2022•1 hr 36 min
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 winning films have come from the Black List and Semans’ latest screenplay ended up there as one of the ...
Nov 02, 2022•1 hr 29 min
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 attention of horror audiences. The biggest criticism around that film, however, was a lack of narrative, wh...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 27 min
Conceived and curated entirely on the popular, audio-based social media platform Clubhouse, the newly released "Sinphony: A Clubhouse Horror Anthology" features shorts from some of the best and brightest up and coming filmmakers across horror. In this special episode of Rewind of the Living Dead, we speak to three of those filmmakers about their work on "Sinphony" including Haley Bishop, who many will remember as the star of the massive hit film "Host," as well as Kimberley Elizabeth — one of th...
Oct 24, 2022•33 min
When David Gordon Green got the greenlight to begin developing a new take on the “Halloween” franchise, he started by fleshing out a story that would resurrect Michael Myers and pit him against Laurie Strode once again. Initially, Green wanted to pitch two films that he would shoot back-to-back, which would ultimately serve as one complete story. Those plans were scratched but Green still found massive success with the release of his first “Halloween” film in 2018. It didn’t take long for the st...
Oct 18, 2022•2 hr
Talks about a ‘Hellraiser’ reboot or remake had been in the works for years with original creator Clive Barker occasionally offering updates about the film. Various writers and directors were pitched for the project for a franchise that had already seen a multitude of lackluster sequels. By 2013, Barker said he was set to direct and write the newest iteration of the series with Doug Bradley returning as Pinhead. The project continued to languish away in development hell until 2019 when Spyglass ...
Oct 12, 2022•1 hr 35 min
Raised in a small town near Akron, Ohio, Parker Finn grew up as a huge fan of film but particularly when it came to horror movies. Often intrigued by the covers of VHS tapes at the video store, Finn admittedly watched films that he probably had no business seeing at a young age. Being traumatized by movies like Poltergeist and The Shining set Finn on a path where he was determined to eventually scare people with films of his own. That led him to make his critically acclaimed 2020 short film titl...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 28 min
