Movies
Dee Snider Will Return As Captain Howdy In a ‘StrangeLand’ Remake!
After years and years in development hell, Dee Snider is finally returning as the psychotic Captain Howdy.
Emaji, Inc.’s Emaji Entertainment tell Bloody Disgusting that they have acquired the rights to remake Snider’s StrangeLand, the 1998 horror film written by and starring Snider, the frontman of heavy metal giant Twisted Sister.
Dee Snider’s portrayal of Carlton Hendricks aka Captain Howdy in the original film created a character that has become a cult horror legend. Bloody has also learned that Emaji will accompany the singer-songwriter, screenwriter, radio personality and actor back into the dark underground world of ritualistic body modification where victims are lured via an ever pervasive world of social media.
StrangeLand: Disciple is being called a “reboot” but also sounds as if it’s a continuation. My guess is that the film will reference the 1998 film while bringing the terror of Captain Howdy to modern audience. StrangeLand is primed for a modern adaptation as the original was a first-of-its-kind techno thriller where teenage girls are victimized by a psycho (Snider) who lures them using the Internet.
The 1998 soundtrack included an incredible array of bands-System Of A Down, Sevendust, Soulfly, Slipknot, Kid Rock, Coal Chamber, Twisted Sister, Megadeth, Marilyn Manson and Pantera-handpicked by Snider. “Music was intrinsic to me in the first one. We really tried to create the ultimate heavy soundtrack. Music will be important to me again for this film,” adds Snider.
The movie will be set in the “underworld of body modification fetishists, amid the secret sado-masochistic freak societies of perverted pleasures that lurk just underneath the veneer of respectable society,” said Snider back in 2009.
Back in 2010 we learned that Robert Englund was also returning as Jackson Roth, and came across the following synopsis on a casting website:
“One year after Carleton Hendricks aka Captain Howdy’s (Dee Snider) sadistic rampage, much more than the physical scars the schizophrenic, sexual sadist gave his victims are left behind. Their lives, destroyed by emotional torment and the media frenzy surrounding the crimes, Detective Mike Gage, his daughter Geneveve and vigilante Jackson Roth (Robert Englund) each have their crosses to bear. But when the badly burned and mentally broken Carlton Hendricks is taken from a state run mental hospital and off his medication by billionaire, media mogul, Morgan LaForce, leader of the body modification/fetish haven called “The Torture Garden”, the door swings wide open for each of Captain Howdy’s victims to find closure… and retribution.”
It’s unclear how much has changed in the years of development, but I personally love Snider’s Strangeland and consider it a cult classic. You?
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
You must be logged in to post a comment.