While cynical big screen studio remakes of horror classics aren’t the box office draw they were a few years back, affectionate retread’s of lesser-seen cult gems are coming thick and fast, and are generally far better received by genre obsessives. The latest to pop up on our radar is the upcoming remake of Don Gronquist’s 1982 slasher Unhinged, which already has a trailer.
A mostly plodding stalk-and-slash effort enlivened by sparse moments of fairly graphic slaughter (courtesy of a scythe-wielding maniac), the original Unhinged achieved notoriety by running afoul of the UK authorities, appearing on the infamous Video Nasties list. Certainly one of the less-vicious nasties, Unhinged has now long been available uncut.
The feature debut of director Dan Allen (winner of the ‘Best Young Filmmaker’ award at the Coca-Cola Cinemagic Film Festival in 2009), the remake comes from burgeoning UK production house Proportion Productions. It joins a bevy of genre flicks on their upcoming slate, including Fox Trap, 12 Deaths of Christmas and The House on Elm Lake.
Unhinged stars Kate Lister (Fox Trap), Lucy-Jane Quinlan (Cage, The Cutting Room), Becky Fletcher (Deadly Waters) and Lorena Andrea who, along with Fletcher, stars in Proportion’s The House on Elm Lake.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Four American girls travel through the backlands in North England travelling to a funeral. When the girls’ car breaks down due to barbed wire being left in the middle of the road, they girls must hike through the woods to find help. The girls instead come across a house in the middle of the woods owned by Miss Perkins who claims to live alone. Little do the girls know, an unknown evil lurks in the attic above them waiting to come face to face with each girl, and only then will the girls know what true horror is.
Unhinged has been picked up by 88 Films and ITN Distribution, with a DVD/VOD release slated for September.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
