Repeat Business: 30 Horror Film Franchises Getting A Restart

8. Hellraiser

Based on The Hellbound Heart, a novella by Clive Barker, the original Hellraiser with Doug Bradley as the walking pincushion imaginatively named Pinhead, proved the author could direct his own work to massive success.

The remake has suffered hellish development setbacks since 2007 when Dimension Films hired Inside directors, Alexander Bustillo and Julian Maury to work a script written by the scribes behind the Saw sequels. After Bustillo and Maury bowed out, Pascal Laugier of Martyrs took up duties. Laugier aimed to take Hellraiser in a darker direction whereas the studio wanted a lighter, teen-friendly affair, so he too left the project.

Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer took to developing the film in 2010, but again were at loggerheads with the studio over the direction they wished to take.

Then in August 2012, a glut of new artwork proposed for a remake surfaced alongside a teaser trailer – which sadly is unavailable online. The artwork by Paul Gerrard of Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath Of The Titans show a more tortured Pinhead (see above picture), whose pins appeared to have been hammered in leaving remnants of blood teeming down his face. Mike Le Han directed the trailer based on the artwork, incorporating 100 extras and multiple FX houses to pitch a new outline for a new Hellraiser.

For now, no new details have surfaced but considering the amount of labour Dimension have dedicated to finding a vision they wish to back, let’s hope Gerrard and Le Han’s proposal won them over.

7. Pet Sematary

Another Stephen King adaptation, Pet Sematary could probably do with a remake (but not as much as his killer-car flick, Christine) and Paramount agrees. Two years back, Dave Kajdanich, also hired to deliver the first draft for the It remake, completed a screenplay but didn’t satiate Paramount bosses, who then brought in 1408 scribe Matthew Greenburg for a rewrite.

Last year, Paramount were actively pursuing remake maestro Alexandre Aja to direct. Aja is no stranger to remakes after delivering The Hills Have Eyes and Pirahna 3D with sufficient gore and shock, which could be just what this remake needs.

In the late 1980s when the original Pet Sematary was released, audiences weren’t saturated by zombie films as they are today and so it wasn’t marketed as one. Discussion on the novel and film seldom classify it as a zombie tale but come on, bringing the dead back to life? If that’s not zombie then I’ll buy a hat and then eat it.

This time around, whoever lands the director’s gig has a quirky spin on the zombie mythology ready to exploit as in the world of Pet Sematary, the dead are buried with the intent that they will return. Pull your finger out Paramount and get a director!

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