Here’s an interesting bit of news: according to a new report over at Deadline, Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions is mounting a remake of Wes Craven’s intensely weird 1991 home invasion horror, The People Under the Stairs. Peele will produce alongside Win Rosenfeld, and the company has lined up Ezra Clayton Daniels (Doom Patrol, Night Sky) to write the screenplay.
For those who’ve never seen The People Under the Stairs, Deadline offers up a reasonably accurate rundown of the plot. Keep in mind while you read this, however, that the movie is even more bizarre than this description implies:
“The original Universal Studios movie, which Craven wrote and directed, and produced with Shep Gordon follows young Fool (Brandon Adams) who breaks into the home of his family’s greedy and uncaring landlords. There he discovers a disturbing scenario where incestuous adult siblings have mutilated a number of boys and kept them imprisoned under stairs in their large, creepy house. As Fool attempts to flee before the psychopaths can catch him, he meets their daughter, Alice (A.J. Langer), who has been spared any extreme discipline by her deranged parents. Fool and Alice attempt to escape.”
Wes Craven’s filmography overflows with iconic horror titles, and it’s honestly a little surprising that The People Under the Stairs isn’t namechecked more frequently amongst horror nerds. It’s a genuinely unsettling film, one that feels very “of the moment” for the time in which it was made. Given what Monkeypaw did with their Candyman remake, it feels safe to assume that the new People Under the Stairs will also feel very much of its time, and that whatever Monkeypaw and Daniels have planned for it will twist the formula a bit.
This one’s just been announced, so there’s not much to report at this time. Rest assured, however, that we’re gonna be all over this one, and will keep you informed as further updates roll in. Stay tuned for those, folks!
