Ever since we started the Cult Film Club podcast we’ve enjoyed spending some time in each episode discussing the potential of the selected film in terms of where the story could go if it were ever furthered. Whether that was Recasting the film for a potential reboot or lately, in a segment we like to call To Be Continued, where we spitball ideas about sequels that were never made or where we see the characters years later down the road. On this most recent episode while discussing Wes Craven’s 1991 ghetto horror flick The People Under the Stairs we joked around about the ghouls reintegrating back into society (getting jobs at Starbucks or trainers at Sea World).
But all joking aside, we all agreed that there was a lot of potential in the concept that had yet to be mined. Whether it was exploring a weird house full of catacombs, hidden passageways and crawlspaces, or simply the relationship between Alice and Fool and where they’d be twenty years down the road. Would they remain together, did they take over what’s left of the house, or were they scarred so badly by the events of the first film that they were doomed to repeat them?
Well, little did we know that there may be no reason to speculate as not long after we recorded the episode we learned that Wes Craven had just recently inked a deal with the SYFY channel to adapt The People Under the Stairs into a television series! Here’s the pertinent passage from the press release…
“The People Under the Stairs is based on Wes Craven’s classic 1991 film of the same name. When a young woman goes missing at the grand Robeson Family Manor, her search unveils the centuries-old horrors that lie deep within the estate. It is a contemporary Downton Abbey meets Amityville Horror. Craven, Shep Gordon from Alive Productions, Michael Reisz, and Tracey Murray and Sara Bottfeld from Industry Entertainment are set to executive produce. The project will be written by Michael Reisz (Shadowhunters, Unforgettable).”
So whether or not this show ever actually sees the light of day (it might, Craven’s Scream has just been brought to TV and there’s a history of other Craven films being adapted to TV, namely A Nightmare on Elm Street and Swamp Thing), it’s pretty darn interesting to imagine a team of writers and producers huddled around a television, screening the movie and trying to figure out how to bring it to the small screen. Could they use imagery like the gimp suit in the wake of the very popular An American Horror Story? Will any of the original cast come back in cameos or as their characters from the film? Time will only tell…
