Editorials
Do We Really Want ‘Prometheus 2’ To Be More “Alien-y”?
On Monday Prometheus 2 became more “real” to me than ever in the sense that it looks like this movie is actually happening. Not only did 20th Century Fox hire Jack Paglen to write a script for the sequel in the wake of its initial release, they just now tapped Michael Green (who just wrote the new Blade Runner for Ridley Scott and Warner Bros) to rewrite it. To me, this is significant and marks this as a priority for the studio because it’s happening after all the dust has settled. While the first film certainly didn’t lose money with a $400M worldwide take, it probably didn’t make as much as Fox was hoping for considering its budget was around $130M with a global P&A campaign that I’m sure easily exceeded $50M. Keep in mind, the studio doesn’t see anything close to the gross returns of any given film coming back in the net – so the margin of profit here, while healthy, might not be stratospheric.
But they’re doubling down now (perhaps in the light of decent ancillary revenue). Like I said, the dust has settled and they’re pressing on. Shooting is apparently scheduled to begin this fall. I’m not giving anyone a hard time here, I enjoyed Prometheus (even though the issues with its script play louder to me than they did before) and I’m excited to see what they come up with next. But what I liked about the film was the fact that Ridley Scott seemed truly engaged by the material. There was a real reason why they veered away from John Spaihts’ Alien: Engineers draft and brought on Damon Lindelof to nudge the property further into unknown territory – Scott wasn’t interested in repeating himself. While the shift from Spaihts to Lindelof was ultimately problematic (on paper I prefer the Alien: Engineers draft to Lindelof’s script), it might have been what was needed to engage Scott. And if you look at Prometheus as a film, it’s pretty clear that its new ideas and scenarios are handled with a lot more verve than the Alien elements, which tended to come across as rote and obligatory.
So with the news that Green is being brought onboard partially to make the script more “alien-y” (in the words of the source that spoke to The Wrap), I have to wonder if this project is being shifted out of Scott’s interest range. Granted, this is Sir Ridley Scott here so part of me has to assume he knows what the f*ck he’s doing (or wants to fulfill a contract clause from the first film), but it seems like backsliding. When doing press back in 2012 he was absolutely resolute that the reason it took him so long to get around to making Prometheus was that he felt that the well on Alien ideas had run dry.
So the real question is, has Scott found a new angle in the Alien-verse that truly excites him? Or is he doing a bit of fan (and studio) service? I wouldn’t begrudge him on any of this, but I was actually excited for a movie where Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw and the head of Michael Fassbender’s David rocket around the universe completely unfettered by arbitrary associations to an exploitable brand. It seemed like the franchise might pull away from its anchor and really take off in the direction Scott wanted to go. If a great director is truly inspired by the material he’s working with, I’ll take that over brand recognition any day of the week. We already have seven movies with Xenomorphs in them, how many more do we need?
Again, I could be totally wrong on all of this. Maybe Scott really has found a new idea that simultaneously excites him and allows 20th Century Fox to return to a more solid franchise footing. And if that’s the case, I really am all for it (and either way I’m excited for the multiple Michael Fassbenders we’re told to expect from the film). It’s just that there’s a finite amount of Ridley Scott films left in our future, and I want all of them to count.
From child-eating witches to village-burning dragons, fairy tales have always had a foot in the horror genre. That’s why it makes sense that, for every The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, there are also darker and more adult-oriented stories about magical worlds inhabited by ravenous monsters and cruel villains.
Funnily enough, these sinister tales were precisely the ones that I gravitated towards back when I was a kid, and I was reminded of this while watching Netflix’s recently released I Am Frankelda, Mexico’s first ever feature-length stop-motion animation and one hell of an entertaining parable about the intersection between fiction and reality.
In honor of this special kind of horror-adjacent fairy tale, today I’d like to share this list recommending six Dark Fantasy films that horror fans might enjoy.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be defining Dark Fantasy as fantastical stories that don’t shy away from the more macabre elements that fuel classic fairy tales. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own grim favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
I’m fascinated by bizarre attempts at blockbuster filmmaking – especially when the resulting movies are somehow still fun despite their corporate-mandated origins. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is precisely one of these strangely compelling studio projects, as this surprisingly successful action-thriller boasts a lot of heart (and tongue-in-cheek humor) for a CGI-heavy creature feature.
Directed by Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola, Witch Hunters re-frames the classic fairy tale as an origin story for a duo of badass monster-slayers. Of course, it’s the flick’s anachronistic aesthetic and overall visual flair that make it stand out from other action-horror endeavors from around the same time.
5. The Wolf House (2018)
Made in the tradition of faux cursed films in the same vein as Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made, the eerie backstory to 2018’s Chilean animated flick The Wolf House (La Casa Lobo in the original Spanish) already makes it a nightmarish experience before the flick even really begins.
After all, the movie is presented to us as a faux propaganda film produced by the leader of a death cult (heavily inspired by the real life Colonia Dignidad), with this hybrid animated feature using complex movie magic to simulate a single uninterrupted shot as it tells the story of a lazy young girl who runs away from an isolated colony and encounters a creepy old house in the woods.
4. The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Out of all the Monty Python alumni, Terry Gilliam has had the most interesting career outside of the original comedy group. From fascinating canceled projects (such as his scrapped adaptation of Watchmen) to dystopian parodies that feel more relevant by the minute (1985’s Brazil), even his “lesser” films are still intriguing in their own way.
2005’s The Brothers Grimm is one such project, with this peculiar movie attempting to combine the comedian-turned-filmmaker’s unique visual style with a more blockbuster-oriented plot reimagining the titular brothers as con-artists rather than mere writers. The end result isn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it’s still a legitimately fun ride with plenty of memorable monsters and wonderful performances by both the late, great Heath Ledger and Matt Damon.
3. Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)
2010’s Dante’s Inferno game may have a reputation as something of an unapologetic God of War clone, but I’d argue that the now-obscure game was aesthetically unique enough to deserve a bigger fanbase. However, while the title remains trapped on the seventh console generation, its highly underrated anime adaptation is a lot easier to get a hold of!
Animated by 6 different studios in order to make the 9 circles of hell feel unique from each other, this may not be a completely faithful adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s poem, but it’s still one heck of a great (not to mention gory) time that I’d highly recommend to fans of Netflix’s take on Castlevania.
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)
My personal favorite entry in the Underworld franchise, Rise of the Lycans, is a highly ambitious prequel that actually works better if you haven’t had the story spoiled to you by the previous Underworld films.
While the rest of the series features plenty of urban fantasy elements as the movies combine machine guns and modern environments with gothic storytelling, Patrick Tatopoulos’ prequel fully embraces its fantastical origins and tells a classic tale about a doomed romance between a werewolf and a vampire amid a medieval uprising.
And the best part is that we get a lot more Michael Sheen as the fan-favorite Lucian.
1. Solomon Kane (2011)
One of my personal favorite movies on this list, MJ Basset’s criminally underseen adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s other iconic warrior is thoroughly steeped in horror ambience and features plenty of memorable monsters. However, it’s also a classic origin story for a swashbuckling hero that wouldn’t feel out of place in a tabletop RPG.
While I’ve already written about how the film deftly combines both horror and fantasy elements without breaking the bank, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend the bizarre movie where James Purefoy expertly plays a puritan John Wick.
It’s just too bad that we never got the other films in this intended trilogy.
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