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- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday July 11 1999 21:43 BST
Tired of slasher pics but still keen to enjoy late-night frights? Well, help is at hand. Following the spate of post-Scream horror flicks aimed at teens, ghost stories are set for a mini revival.
Modern slasher movies can be traced back to 1978's Halloween. Of course, prior to Mike Myers' killing spree, Psycho chilled Sixties audiences. Haunted houses and ghoulies, though, are a traditional staple in horror literature and cinema.
As the profitable re-release of The Exorcist proved earlier this year, there is a sizeable adult audience eager for a sophisticated scare. To offset the inevitable backlash against slasher pics and, by extension, falling profits, a selection of more mature frighteners is on the way.
Tim Burton has spent most of 1999 in Britain filming an adaptation of Washington Irving's classic short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Starring Burton's favourite actor, Johnny Depp, alongside Christina Ricci and scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven), Sleepy Hollow promises to be a gothic treat from America's darkest auteur.
The most talked about movie at this year's Sundance festival was The Blair Witch Project. Shot on a shoestring budget, it concerns three student documentary-makers who venture into a ghost-ridden Maryland forest and then disappear. Their plight is only revealed with the discovery of their video footage.
If The Blair Witch Project is aimed at art-house fans, The Haunting aims to woo multiplex regulars. Speed's Jan De Bont directs the ubiquitous Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson as boffins that unwittingly conduct an insomnia study in a haunted mansion. It's a remake of 1963's The Haunting of Hill House.
Another horror remake, The House on Haunted Hill, covers much the same ground featuring a lower-wattage cast, headed by Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen. Revisiting Vincent Price's 1958 role, Rush is the eccentric tycoon who invites five guests back to his townhouse on the promise of a million-dollar payday if they can survive his 'haunted house party'. Ironically, one advantage ghost stories hold over their slasher rivals are opportunities for visual wizardy. Burton's Sleepy Hollow's set has garnered better buzz than most finished films while De Bont's house literally comes alive with menace. The kids will love it.
