In the world of filmmaking, there are countless movies that fall apart before they go into production, and in certain cases some potential gems are forever lost in process. Read on as the staff of OMGHorror reveals would-be horror films that we would have loved to see reach completion.
Alfred Hitchcock's Kaleidoscope
What if British lord of suspense Sir Alfred Hitchcock's greatest thriller vanished off the face of the earth forever when the legendary auteur of cinema was buried in 1980? Unfortunately, we'll never really know how the director's 66th film, Kaleidoscope, would have played out--though, it would have likely been something good considering Hitchcock's finest (and most heavily rooted in horror) films were made in the last two decades of his life (Psycho, Frenzy, The Birds). The guy was definitely on an upswing. Kaleidoscope was about a murderous bodybuilder who would rape the corpses of his victims after he snuffed them out. The most interesting aspect of the film is the fact that it was to be shot entirely from the perspective of the killer, giving audiences a first-person perspective in to the atrocious mind of a serial killer.
House of Re-Animator
Even though the two sequels to Stuart Gordon's 80s gorefest Re-Animator (Bride of Re-Animator and Beyond Re-Animator), failed to receive the critical and commercial success of the first film, we still would have loved to see a fourth entry in the series. The original movie which was based on a satirical story by H.P. Lovecraft of Mary Shelly's horror fiction magum opus Frankenstein and House of Re-Animator, which was planned to be a political satire that would reboot the series, continued the saga of series protagonist Dr. Herbert West as he is sent to the White House to re-animate the lifeless body of the Vice President of the United States. Gordon has made it clear that there is little chance that House will be resurrected at this point.
Predator 3
Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror film Alien warranted three official sequels, so why is it that the equally as badass and similarly themed Predator only received one follow-up film (and, no, we're not counting the unspeakably terrible AVP movies as anything other than trashy spin-offs)? While a couple of possible scripts were floating around for Predator 3, the one that's most interesting brings back Arnold Schwartzneggar's character from the first Predator film and Danny Glover's character from Predator 2 in a new entry where the two characters are captured and taken to the Predator species' home planet. If the Predators hunt and skin alive beings from other planets for sport, imagine what kind of fucked up things they'd be into in their own hood.
Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
There were several proposed versions of the sequel to 2001's action-horror film which pitted two of the biggest names in modern horror against each other and the immense financial success of the original film and fan's unyielding hunger for a second movie almost ensured that Freddy vs. Jason 2 would arrive in some form or another. The most exciting considered sequel brought the Evil Dead series' Ash character into the battle between horror icons, but Evil Dead's creator Sam Raimi rejected the idea.
Robocop vs. Terminator
Sure, it's probably not quite accurate to label The Terminator as purely "horror," but James Cameron's original dark film about a killer cyborg sent back in time certainly embraces many horror elements. And Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop about a cyborg police officer was so exceedingly graphic that it originally earned an "X" rating. Face the two metal ass-kickers against each other and you have one of the best ideas for bloody-as-hell movie that we'd kill to see. Despite the fact that the film was in talks for some time, the project has never taken off the ground other than being made into a video game.
George A. Romero's Resident Evil
A year before Paul W.S. Anderson squirted out the first second-rate zombie flick loosely based on Capcom's Resident Evil video game series, god of the zombie subgenre, George A. Romero, was greenlit to both write and direct Resident Evil. The studio wasn't happy with Romero's script and the project was handed off to Anderson. Can you picture a world with a Resident Evil movie that doesn't suck nads made by the dude who knows zombies best?
Read the script for George A. Romero's Resident Evil here.
Steven Spielberg's Night Skies
Described as a "horror treatment to a Close Encounters of the Third Kind" made by Steven Spielberg himself, Night Skies was written by John Sayles who Spielberg admired for his screenplay for the cult-horror movie Piranha. To make this alien horror film even sweeter, special effects master Rick Baker of American Werewolf in London fame was hired to create the alien which he did. The monstrous lifeform cost $70 thousand to make and floored Spielberg with its terrifying and magnifiense appearance. Sadly for horror fans, the acclaimed director had a change of heart and made the family-friendly E.T. instead.
The Thing 2
John Carpenter's gruesome work of genius about a malevolent shapeshifting alien slaughtering people in the below freezing temperatures of Antarctic was supposed to have a sequel. Hard to believe, we know. We'll let Carpenter sum up what it would have been about and what went wrong: "I have a great story for Part 2, which kicks off with the two characters left alive at the end of the first one." He continues noting that Universal is"interested in doing a sequel, but it's not interested in having me direct it! You know, the studio will end up getting some commercials hotshot to do it, and that'll be that. I don't care. I'm certainly not going to beg."
Steven King and Frank Darabont's Bag of Bones
Damn near everything horror fiction legend Steven King pens almost instantly makes its way to the silver screen, and more often than not, King's knack with the genre translates well to film if the director handling the material is even half decent. His stunning 1998 novel Bag of Bones was about an author who develops a nasty case of both writer's block and hellish nightmares after his wife unexpectedly dies of a brain aneurism. It was optioned for film, and Frank Darabont was on board to direct (who directed award-winning Steven King film adaptations such as The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist), but the film's production fizzled out and Darabont went on to direct King's The Mist. While Darabont's adaptation of Bag of Bones won't happen, hack horror director Mick Garris (responsible for crap like the mind-bendingly horrible Quicksilver Highway and the insultingly unneccessary newer version of The Shining) has signed on to bring the book to the big screen.
Bad Taste 2 / Bad Taste 3
In Peter Jacksons' biography "Peter Jackson: A Film-maker's Journey" it's revealed that the Academy Award-winning New Zealander had concrete plans to do Bad Taste 2 and Bad Taste 3 back-to-back. Jackson's original Bad Taste was a tongue-in-cheek gore-drenched film about aliens landing in a small town in New Zealand in order to collect humans who happen to be what's on the menu for their intergalactic fast food chain. The immediate sequel was to take place on the alien's home planet and the third entry was said to involve flying houses, revenge, and Santa Claus. Though it is hard to imagine PJ returning to his vulgar but awesome first film after becoming internationally celebrated for his Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, the director has expressed a desire to make the two films happen--so all hope is not lost.
Society 2: Body Modification
Judging from the fact not a whole lot of people even saw the incredibly bizarre, but brilliant original (Society was made in 1989 but not released until 1992 in The States), the chances that we'll ever see Society 2 come to fruition are not good. A script for Society 2: Body Modification was completed by Stephen Biro (who wrote the screenplay for "Departyd," not to be confused with Scorsese's "The Departed") which was said to delve deeper into what goes on in the cult of senior citizens that get their kicks out of raising the poor as their own and then breaking the news to them that they're adopted by forcing them into a cannibalistic orgy with the entire society of shape-shifting elderly.
Evil Dead IV
The fourth entry in Sam Raimi's beloved Evil Dead trilogy is different from some of the other movies on our list because there is still a chance, as little as it may be, that it could happen. That said, if number IV did happen, the film would more than likely pick up where Army of Darkness (the third movie in the series) left off, where Ash is transported to the present after defeating the Deadite hordes in Medieval times. Diehard Evil Dead fans should keep an eye out for the upcoming film My Name is Bruce, where Bruce Campbell plays a B-movie actor loosely based on himself who must battle a Chinese war deity.
Godzilla vs. Frankenstein
We're well aware that quite a few "vs." films appear in this list, but this one makes our list for an entirely different reason than the other cancelled faceoff movies we mentioned. What kind of a chance does Frankenstein's monster have in a fight against the colossal Godzilla? We suppose the monster could try his best to beat the hell out of one of Godzilla's toes in hopes of toppling the giant lizard or he could find a way into his anus to destroy Godzilla from the inside out. Or the monster could grow up 300 times his height as he did in the Japanese film Frankenstein Conquers the World.
Hellraiser (Remake)
The Hellraiser franchise has been plagued by a slew of horrendous sequels that spit in the faces of the first couple of movies in the series (some will tell you that every Hellraiser after Hellbound: Hellraiser II is not worth anyone's time). Up until recently, Clive Barker's Hellraiser series was scheduled to be reawakened with a new take on the original film. Barker worked with the writers of the French horror movie Inside to come up with a script, but their screenplay was shot down by the studio and the writers were replaced with the writers of Feast. The director handling the new Hellraiser project has also since bailed out on the project.
