Movies
‘The Craft’ Remake is Actually a Sequel
The last we heard of The Craft remake, Leigh Janiak had been attached to write and direct the film. Since then, however, there has been a whole lot of silence, which is never good when the impending threat of a coven of witches is looming.
However, a fresh piece of news has broken courtesy of our good pal Chris over at HitFix, who spoke with the remake’s producer Douglas Wick to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary.
Wick said that the remake isn’t actually a remake but is instead more of a continuation of the original story, just 20 years later.
“I wouldn’t say that we wouldn’t so much call it a remake as a ‘twenty years later’. There will be callbacks to the original movie, so you will see there is a connection between what happened in the days of ‘The Craft,’ and how these young women come across this magic many years later,” Wick revealed.
Wick also spoke about the vision that Janiak and co-writer Phil Graziadei have in store for viewers, explaining:
“Here are some young women who once again discover the power of magic, and we explore their emotional lives, their wants, their fears, their longings, as they become empowered. So you know, the same way you use a war movie to explore the psyche of men, you get to create a heightened world to explore the psyche of these women. And so that seemed like an opportunity that was ripe and a way to make a movie that would be very much about now. And of course, part of that was just finding a talent that felt like enough of a real talent that you’d really be interested in her interpretation of this kind of story now, and of course Leigh is exactly that.”
The full interview can be found at the link above.
The 1996 The Craft starred Robin Tunney as a newcomer to a Catholic prep high school who falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls (played by Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True) who practice witchcraft and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who even slightly anger them.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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