Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures has been building up its horror catalogue with the American remake of The Grudge, as well as movies like Boogeyman, The Messengers, Drag Me To Hell and 30 Days Of Night. Now the Spider-man director wants to take things one step further by setting up an offshoot, Spooky Pictures, which will produce thrillers (with a horror bent) for family audiences.
According to Variety, the first film made by the company will be The Substitute, a remake of a Danish thriller that Scott Derickson (The Exorcism Of Emily Rose) will direct. The film is about a sixth grade class who have the fright of their lives when they discover their substitute teacher is actually an evil alien, and have to try to tell their parents before terrible things happen.
The original was written and directed by Ole Bornedal, who impressed the world this year with the amnesiac thriller Just Another Love Story, which also has any American remake in the works.
It seems Hollywood thinks there’s a lot of money to be made at the moment from family thrillers, as it’s only a couple of weeks since Guilermo Del Toro set up a deal at Disney to create Double Dare You Films, which will make similarly pitched movie, although that company will concentrate on animated pictures rather than live action films.