Jordan Peele Remaking THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS

I don’t know about this one. On the one hand, Peele has made it his specialty crafting quality Horror cinema centered around black characters and black issues, and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS has both. There’s all this subtext about gentrification, greed, and class warfare that Wes Craven imbued into the original film. Peele could make some real hash out of that. On the other hand, there’s no way a remake, regardless of who is in the driver’s seat, could top Craven’s film. Any attempt is doomed to come up short. What Peele would need to do is to make a starkly different movie, one so different that comparisons to the original would be superfluous. Also, there’s no way any actors, whoever they might be, could outdo Wendy Robie and Everett McGill as the film’s villains. Whoever ends up in those roles ought to play them completely differently if they have any hopes for success.

The one thing that a remake should hang on to above all others? The cannibals in the basement, or the titular “people under the stairs”. Without that element, the movie, as horrific as the treatment of some of the characters might be, isn’t really a Horror movie. The cannibals living in the walls of the house provide the movie its bite. I expect Mr. Peele knows this.

By The Evil Cheezman

WAYNE MILLER is the owner and creative director of EVIL CHEEZ PRODUCTIONS (www.evilcheezproductions.blogspot.com, www.facebook.com/evilcheezproductions), specializing in theatrical performances and haunted attractions. He has written, produced and directed (and occasionally acted in) over a dozen plays, most of them in the Horror and Crime genres. His first novel, THE CONFESSIONS OF SAINT CHRISTOPHER: WEREWOLF, is available for purchase at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/734763 MORTUI VELOCES SUNT!

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