Seeing as how a slew of John Carpenter’s classic early films—Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing—have generated crappy remakes (well, The Thing remake hasn’t been released yet, but it has generated a really crappy trailer), it stands to reason that one of JC’s crown jewels, the Kurt Russell-starring Escape from New York, would earn it’s own remake as well.  And, after several false starts and attempts, New Line and Warner Bros. have abandoned their numerous attempts to remake the film.

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For a while now there’s been rumors of a remake of the John Carpenter cult film They Live. And for a while all horror films seemed to be remakes, with three of Carpenter’s films remade, and with a remake of Escape From New York still not totally dead. Director Matt Reeves is taking a page from the John Carpenter handbook. They Live was based on a short story called “8 O’Clock in the Morning,” and Reeves says he’s now adapting that instead of the film – according to Deadline Hollywood.

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A trailer has been released for legendary director John Carpenter’s latest work The Ward. The movie stars Amber Heard as a young woman on the run against truly insane forces. The film shares a lot of similarities with Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch but unfortunately, it doesn’t have a U.S. release date yet. We wonder why? Check out the trailer below…

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Legendary horror director John Carpenter has just agreed to sign on as the executive producer of the upcoming film The Hell Within, which will help this film go from the littler indie that could, to a possibly mainstream horror film. The announcement was just officially made today by Benito Mueller and Wolfgang Mueller of Barry Films, the production company making the film.

Benito Mueller:

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Over the past year, we’ve heard bits and pieces about director John Carpenter‘s upcoming project, Riot. When the film was first announced it was under the working title Scared Straight, which was based off the 1970′s documentary of the same name. Nicolas Cage has long been attached to star as the film’s lead, in the role of a prisoner turned anti-hero.

I recently spoke to the executive producer of the Riot Katie Chonacas, and she told me that Cage’s involvement isn’t set in stone, and from the looks of it he might drop out of the film all together.

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Here are some of the top news stories about what projects are getting off the ground.

• Slap Shot, the 1977 sports comedy that starred the late Paul Newman is getting remade. Dean Parisot is set to direct the new version, which will be produced by Kathleen Kennedy. Some of Parisot’s previous work includes, Home Fries, Fun With Dick and Jane, and my personal favorite Galaxy Quest! [Variety]
• Horror extraordinaire John Carpenter has signed on to direct The Ward. A psychological thriller starring Pineapple Express alum, Amanda Heard. [THR]

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Remakes, remakes, remakes!! According to Variety, another version of the horror classic The Thing is in the works. There have already been two previous versions of the film, based off of the John W. Campbell short story, “Who Goes There.”  In 1951 Howard Hawks directed The Thing From Another World, and in 1982 John Carpenter came out with his version simply entitled, The Thing. This next revamp will have a script written by Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ron Moore, and will be directed by Matthijis Van Heijningen.

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In the first Horror 101 post I listed ten films the average horror fan may not have seen but should. In this “lesson” I’ll discuss writer HP Lovecraft.

What does a horror writer from the 20′s and 30′s have to do with horror films today? In the case of Lovecraft, a lot. I have not written much about his life and works here, that’s what Wikipedia is for. He wrote about horrific creatures/gods/aliens which often were insane…. or worse.

His works, primarily short stories with some novellas, have inspired many films.  Some are direct adaptations such as “Re-Animator,”  “Die, Monster, Die!” and a couple of episodes of the 1970s television show, “Night Gallery.” An interesting low-budget Lovecraft adaptation recently released is “The Call of Cthulhu,” A modern movie, but shot as a silent film, it’s worth watching as an oddball entry. Check out a clip below…

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John Carpenter’s, Riot, which still goes under it’s original title Scared Straight in most places, just released their movie poster for the film.

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