Insidious, Scream 4, Zombieland 2, Walking Dead and Stephen King: Crypt Keeper’s Corner

It’s time once again for a walk down that dark path, the one that passes between the low hanging trees and mysterious sounds that don’t seem to have a source. Don’t worry too much, though. Just follow the path through the movies all the way to the Stephen King rant, and you should find yourself stepping back into the light relatively unscathed.

It’s bad to find out your home is haunted, but this family probably won’t feel any pity for you, because you can move out of a house. This family has a haunted son, who has somehow become a magnet for all kinds of supernatural nasties.

Insidious is directed by James Wan, the same mastermind who brought us Saw, and it’s produced by the Paranormal Activity gang – Jason Blum, Oren Peli and Steven Schneider. I’m going to try to ignore the team of producers and focus on Wan and the chilling trailer, because Paranormal Activity blew chunks. Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne star as the troubled parents.

The coolest part of the clip has to be the figure with the Darth Maul face standing behind the dad. I have no idea what that scene is about, but it looks wicked as hell.

Insidious will be arriving in theaters on April 1st. What a way to say April Fools.

If Dimension spends as much time with the actual film as they do with the posters, then Scream 4 is going to be butt-kicking awesome. They’ve rolled out a third (yes, third!) image to reel in the movie crowd and I think this one is the best. No pretty faces or name-dropping here; just Ghostface looking like a wicked blade. Whoever designed this beauty deserves a raise, because it gets the job done. Interest is high.

What do you think? Like this new look or prefer the one I showed you before? I’ll go out on a limb and say I think this one looks pretty sharp. Ha ha!

I loved the hell out of Zombieland. If you haven’t seen it, stop what you’re doing right now and go rent it. I’ll wait here until you get back.

Zombieland couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be a horror or a comedy, so Columbia Pictures chose both. We’ve been waiting for a sequel ever since Tallahassee finally got his Twinkie, but the man behind the zombie-hunter says we shouldn’t get our hopes up. The gang over at Total Film had a chance to talk with Woody Harrelson about a sequel happening, and his response was less than thrilling.

“I’m sure it will happen if everyone does it, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. It’s one thing to do it when it came out real good and it made a lot of people laugh, but then to do a sequel…99 out of 100 are worse by a lot. So I don’t know. I don’t feel like a sequels guy.”

Does that mean Zombieland 2 is DOA? Possibly not, but would it fly without Woody? Don’t get me wrong. Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin were great, but Woody made the film stand out. It would be a pale shadow of its former self without Tallahassee killing zombies while searching for those elusive Twinkies.

On the bright side, Woody said he initially didn’t want to read the script for the first movie, but finally gave it a try and decided it was “phenomenal.” He also said, “it might be the first movie I do a sequel to.”

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Tallahassee will ride again.

Speaking of zombies, here’s a double-shot of good news…although one part still has the funky smell of rumor all over it.

There’s some buzz going around the web that katana-wielding Michonne will be stepping out of the Walking Dead comics and into Season Two of the AMC series.

The rumor is given a little weight with the introduction of the Michonne toy figure from McFarlane Toys. It’s still unpainted at this point but is supposed to be ready for the stores by September…which happens to be real close to the expected October return of the hit show. Coincidence? Probably not.

Hollywood hasn’t really messed with Stephen King in a while, but Ron Howard’s Dark Tower project is making the celluloid city look towards the “king of horror” once again.

Paramount Pictures is talking about a remake of Pet Sematary, and they even have writer Matthew Greenberg finishing up a screenplay. There’s still no director for the film, though, so it probably won’t be happening any time soon. All I can say is that Paramount will have to work really hard to make a reboot worse than the original.

Warner Brothers is supposedly working on a redo of The Stand, which could actually benefit from a big screen treatment. The TV mini-series was good, but a big production would be awesome. It would be perfect if they could pry Gary Sinise away from CSI: NY for a little while to do Stu Redman again, but I guess Gary might be a little long in the tooth for the character this time around.

Another King novel that went the small screen route was It, and I believe this is another one that could be blood-chillingly incredible if they could really cut loose with a big screen budget behind it. The mini-series wasn’t too bad until the end, and then It just seemed to lose its way. Not terrible, but the adaptation could have been so much more.

Of course, I’m sure the brains in Hollywood won’t stop there…but they really should. We don’t need another round of Silver Bullet, and Sometimes They Come Back definitely doesn’t need to come back. Salem’s Lot has gotten the page-to-screen treatment twice and really should stay dead and buried, because I don’t think they want to take on that Cullen gang. The Dead Zone wasn’t really horror, and I think all the bases were covered quite well with the television series, anyway. Do I really need to even mention The Mist? It can stay lost in the fog. Another lousy one, Tommyknockers, needs to be left in peace, because I just don’t see anything good coming out of that.

King’s non-horror works definitely don’t need to be looked at. A remake of Misery wouldn’t work without Kathy Bates, because nobody could do crazy like that; and I’ll have to open a can of whup-ass on anybody who tries to roll out The Green Mile again. That movie was great, and there’s no need to mess with perfection.

One of King’s novels seemed to go completely unnoticed by movie-makers, and I was actually kind of shocked, because I think The Talisman could be turned into a really good movie if the right people handled it.

I know there are a few more that I didn’t mention…mainly because they’re not really worth the time. Are there any King movies that you’d like to see remade? Any that you prefer remain untouched? Leave a shout-out down in the comments and let me know what you think.

Well, that’s it for this week, Crypt Campers. I told you the path wouldn’t be too dangerous. Sure, you got a few cuts along the way but they’re really just scratches. I told you that Scream 4 poster was sharp.

Check back next week for more thrills, chills and blood-spills.