Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has only just hit theaters and gotten off to a strong start at the box office in the wake of glowing reviews, but already the speculation has begun about what the filmmaker will get up to next. Of course, this comes with the caveat that Tarantino has been very public about the fact his tenth movie might very well be his last, which only increases the intrigue surrounding what could potentially be his final film.
Every bit of news surrounding Tarantino’s next venture should be taken with a huge pinch of salt; after all, the writer/director has a long and well-publicized history of talking about ideas that likely won’t ever reach the big screen, covering everything from Pulp Fiction/Resorvoir Dogs crossover The Vega Brothers to Australian crime dramas and even a third Kill Bill.
And that’s without even mentioning Tarantino’s R-rated Star Trek movie, which has seemingly been in the works for years but is still no closer to finding its way into production. As a filmmaker that hasn’t been afraid to switch between multiple genres over the course of his career, Tarantino could literally do anything next, but in a recent interview, the two-time Academy Award winner seemed fairly adamant that if he can crack the story, he’d happily take a shot at a horror movie.
“If I come up with a terrific horror film story, I will do that as my tenth film. I love horror movies. I would love to do a horror film. And I do actually think that the Spahn Ranch sequence is the closest to a horror sequence. I do think it’s vaguely terrifying. And I didn’t quite realize how good we did it, frankly, until my editor told me. He goes, ‘the Spahn Ranch sequence is a horror film… it’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a budget’.”
Obviously, Tarantino loves to talk a good game, but it would be fascinating to see his take on the horror genre. After Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it’s become obvious that QT can do ensemble crime thrillers in his sleep, and a straight-up horror would play brilliantly to his strengths as both a writer and director.
The idea of a Tarantino-directed Star Trek sounds good on paper, but there’s little chance he’d get the same level of creative freedom on a studio-backed, effects-driven franchise blockbuster as he would creating something from scratch. As such, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for this to happen.
