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First off, kudos to Bloody Disgusting for spotting this story (through one of their very alert readers). I check a lot of places for horror news each day, but the Wall Street Journal is not one of them.

Anyway, here’s an interesting article from the venerable paper about the state of European horror. To be honest, when I clicked the link I expected a condescending article written by someone who knew next to nothing about horror in general and Euro-horror in particular. So, when it opens talking with Dario Argento and then segues into conversations with Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, and Fabrice Du Welz, they suddenly had my attention. It’s an interesting look not only at the business of European horror cinema, but also a new generation of filmmakers and how they’re not interested in coming to Hollywood–but are instead interested in beating Hollywood at their own game.

The entire piece is a solid read, but the snippets guaranteed to have everyone talking are near the end. Du Welz, Maury, and Bustillo not only talk about how they have no interest in working in Hollywood under the current conditions being offered to them, but they take a few shots at the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake as well. Here’s the excerpt:

“I can only talk for myself, but Hollywood is not much of an attraction for me,” Mr. Du Welz says. “I know I wouldn’t be happy on a film set having two line producers prodding me like on a commercial.”

“Directors like myself, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, and Pascal Laugier have all been getting sent the same scripts, it’s not like Hollywood is interested in us as individual talents,” he adds.

Mr. Bustillo is in total agreement: “We [Julien Maury and I] have an American agent who couldn’t understand how we could turn down directing a remake of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street.’ He felt we were going to earn a lot of money and make a big hit — why refuse? But for us, the screenplay wasn’t any good, and we weren’t going to be able to rewrite it. We’re not interested in cheating, we want to make films we can be proud of.”

Check out the full article here.

I loved Inside–easily one of my favorite horror films of the past few years. Because I love it so much, I’ve been waiting patiently to learn what filmmakers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury had planned for their follow-up. For awhile, it looked like the remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (which now resides in the capable hands of Pascal Laguier) would be the next thing on their dance card. That fell through and then we heard…nothing.

Nothing, that is, until today–when Twitch Film unveiled poster art and a synopsis for their new feature, Livid. That’s the poster above–the synopsis is as follows:

It’s young Lucy’s first day as a trainee in-house caregiver. She visits Mrs Jessel, an old woman who lies in cerebral coma, by herself, in her large desolate house. Learning by accident that Mrs Jessel, a former dance teacher of repute, supposedly possesses a treasure somewhere in the house, Lucy and friends William and Ben decide to search the house in the hope of finding it.

At night, they get into the house, which reveals itself to be increasingly peculiar. Their hunt for Mrs Jessel’s treasure leads them into a horrifying supernatural series of events that will change Lucy forever…

I’m intrigued–I think it’ll be interesting to see what these directors do with supernatural film as opposed to something more grounded in a brutal facsimile of reality. It’s also going to be interesting to see how these guys perform in their first English language production. The movie will reportedly be set in a small Irish town and begin filming later this year. Expect more news as it becomes available.

Bloody-Disgusting scooped everyone yesterday with the news that Inside directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo have left Dimension’s in-development sequel to Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake. No details were given for the departure, but the filmmakers had been working on the script and planning to direct the film.

This is the second time Bustillo and Maury have been dumped at the altar. They were also involved in Dimension’s remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, but were then replaced by Martyrs director Pascal Laugier. Stay tuned to find out what high profile Dimension project they get dumped from next.

All kidding aside, these guys made on of the best horror films of the decade and now they can’t get a job? Maybe their agent should advise them to look beyond Dimension…

This headline highlights the problem with all of these remakes/reboots of classic horror film franchises–Halloween 2 news always makes me think of the original Halloween 2–and I don’t think there’s a lot of news circulating about that particular film. The guys behind these remakes need to start coming up with unique titles just so people aren’t totally confused.

Anyway, Dread Central’s Uncle Creepy caught up with Malek Akkad at the 30 Years of Terror festival in Pasadena. Creepy scored some good skinny: Tyler Mane will be returning as Michael Myers, the film will be a direct sequel to Rob Zombie’s re-imagining of the franchise (beginning right where the first film ended, just the like the originals did…) and some of the other cast members may be back as well (if contract negotiations work out…)

Still no official word on who’s going to direct, but it seems as though Inside directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are still in the running.

Truthfully, I wasn’t particularly interested in another Halloween flick. I thought Zombie’s version was all right, but do we really need to relaunch the entire franchise from scratch? Does this mean the Thorn rune is coming back at some point? Kill me now…

I will say that if Maury and Bustillo direct, that changes things for me a bit. I think these guys are super-talented filmmakers and I’d be interested in seeing what they’d do with an established character and fictional universe. I still think Hellraiser would have been a better fit for them, but that’s totally off the table now.

Halloween 2 is set to start shooting in March of next year.