The project that put Noah Hawley on the map was the FX TV series Fargo, largely due to how beloved the original Coen Brothers movie is. There were apprehensions that he would either be too faithful to the source material or deviate too far from it, instead delivering a series that reimagined and reinterpreted the concept of the black comedy for an update on the tale. With each season he releases, he confirms how inventive he can be with established properties. He continued that expectation with last year’s Alien: Earth, another project that wasn’t a reboot and instead felt like a remix of all corners of Alien lore.
Now, Hawley has set his sights on another reboot, this time for the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hawley is set to produce and direct a new take on 2017’s Terrified, and he’s working with original filmmaker Demián Rugna to do it. Terrified is easily one of the most unsettling movies of the last ten years, though it’s also one that has gone largely overlooked, as most American audiences only had access to it through the horror streaming service Shudder. More recently, Rugna delivered the horror movie When Evil Lurks, another suitably disturbing movie.
Much like Fargo and Alien: Earth, rather than being an outright remake of the Argentinian movie, the upcoming project is described as a “reimagining.” The movie follows an investigation into a series of otherworldly events unfolding in a small neighborhood, and while some movies that feature supernatural hauntings deliver subtle scares, Terrified’s opening scenes alone are more violent and grotesque than many American pictures, with the freaky events only escalating from there.
A still from the movie ‘Terrified’Aura Films
While the narrative of Terrified serves its purpose of propelling the storyline forward, arguably the real key to what makes it so effective is the way in which scares are pulled off. Rather than a movie like Paranormal Activity or the more recent Undertone, which features slow-paced and subtle scares, drawing a viewer in as we question whether we’re really seeing what we thought we saw, Rugna’s film is a relentless experience. He similarly unsettled and disturbed audiences with When Evil Lurks, another story about supernatural occurrences inflicting a small community. In this sense, Rugna seems to draw from the Sam Raimi school of horror, throwing us into the middle of a nightmare.
It’s worth noting, though, that Terrified is not to be confused with the Terrifier franchise, in which the maniacal Art the Clown has unleashed buckets of blood in grotesque ways. While Art has gone on to become a pop-culture figure, invading Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights and Spirit Halloween, Terrified is more of a cult classic.
There’s now also the question of what this movie could mean for the development of Alien: Earth. Season 2 of the series is set to start shooting in May, and Hawley has previously shared he hopes the series runs for multiple seasons beyond that. Hawley could potentially film Terrified later this year once Alien: Earth wraps, or he might be handing over some filmmaking duties to the rest of the Alien: Earth crew. It’s also possible that, with Alien: Earth filming in Bangkok, Terrified could similarly be filmed there, exploring bizarre events in another international locale.
Release Date
May 3, 2018
Runtime
88 minutes
Director
James Merendino
Writers
Demián Rugna
Maxi Ghione
Police Commissioner Funes
Elvira Onetto
Mora Albreck