Blumhouse are so relentless, and formidable, with their horror production that I doubt even a pandemic could stop them from frightening us. One of the myriad titles they have prepped in the vault is a reboot/remake of cult 90s horror The Craft. We don’t know yet when the film will be released (it’s possible the pandemic has added to the uncertainty), but when it does, few will have more emotional investment than its producer Doug Wilk.
That’s because he also produced the original – one of his first film credits. Speaking to ComicBook.com, Wilk discussed how he approached returning to it, saying the following:
“It’s always challenging, because I did The Craft so many years ago, and I started doing it because I just wanted to make a movie about teen-aged girls coming into their sexuality and as I was reading about it, I was reading that the age-old mythology for talking about female empowerment and fear of it was witchcraft.
So then I started going to writers to try and do that. We talked to so many people and we found a really talented female writer/director [Zoe Lister-Jones] and we’re happy with what she’s doing, so we’ll see.”
It must be a title that Wilk cares a great deal about. The Craft probably isn’t a film most people will be familiar with (most people ought to have sufficient scope to exclude the more ardent horror nerds among you), but it’s evidently stuck with Wilk, and with Jason Blum’s backing, one imagines this could break into the mainstream.
Mainstream is where Blum has pushed his studio with quality, and it must be said, quantity. Last year alone, Blumhouse produced 13 movies, their most in a single year yet. Those films included, among others, Glass – M. Night Shyamalan’s long-awaited sequel to Unbreakable (and Split), Ma – a movie I remember for the meme and nothing else and Black Christmas – OK, not the biggest critical darling. Mind you, neither was Glass.
It’s certainly a scary time right now, and I’m not just talking about the pandemic. Honestly, I’ve got pages of these. It’s a great time to love horror-ble things. Ok, now might be the time to admit that I don’t watch any horror movies. Why do you think I’ve been padding for the last 7 sentences? At this rate, we’ll be getting a remake of the remake of The Craft before I’ve managed to wrap this up. Ah, there we go.
