File this under “hell, yes!” Joel and Ethan Coen, the siblings responsible for writing, directing, producing, editing (and possibly catering) some of best films of past couple of decades (this year’s Best Picture nominee True Grit, past Best Picture winner No Country For Old Men, the indisputably great Fargo and The Big Lebowski, the lesser-known but equally great A Serious Man) may be planning a horror movie, or so they told Empire magazine.
The Coens discussed some projects they have in the works:
“Gambit was just a writing job. It seems like the movie is going to get made but not by us; it never was to have been. Old Fink, the Barton Fink sequel, John Turturro is not old enough yet. And the whole thing may be more a thought experiment than a movie. We don’t really know what we’re doing yet; we’re working on a couple of scripts.”
Now, given that the Coen Brothers are prone to doing precisely what they feel like doing and frequently leave scripts in various unfinished states for up to a year at a time, it’s anyone’s guess what their next project might really be. When asked about the possibility of doing a horror script, here’s what they had to say:
“Funny you should ask, yes, we’re working on a couple of scripts now, one of which it would be fair to call a full-on horror movie. Frances McDormand is the monster.”
Ah, deadpan, screwing-with-the-press humor. A sequel to Barton Fink sounds pretty awesome, though.
As the Empire article points out, the Coens’ first film, Blood Simple, had plenty of horror elements, as did Fargo (which cribbed quite a bit from Blood Simple, from the tone and look to specific shots), and No Country For Old Men. Burn After Reading, their No Country follow-up, was technically a comedy, even though it featured a couple of nasty murders.
The Coen Brothers worked as editors on Sam Raimi‘s The Evil Dead – I’d say the horror of everyday life itself runs through their veins. If they make a full-on scare flick, these guys could buck the trend of high-profile A-listers like Quentin Tarantino and Raimi making disappointing genre flicks (the underwhelming Death Proof and the trying-too-hard Drag Me To Hell).
Gambit, which the Coens wrote and which was directed by Michael Hoffman, is a remake of a 1966 heist flick. It stars Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz and will be released some time in 2012.
Would you like to see the Coens make a horror movie? Would you wish it could somehow feature The Dude – as a vampire, maybe?