Sean S. Cunningham is Remaking ‘House’ With a Female Lead

Here we go! We’ve got another horror remake on our hands, but this one, unlike some of the others that have come to pass, at least has one of the original production members involved.  Is that enough to ease your worried minds? I’m guessing: no.

This past Friday the 13th writer/director/producer Sean S. Cunningham was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the New York City Horror Film Festival.  After the ceremony Fangoria caught up with Sean and asked about his upcoming projects and if he would revisit the 1986 classic “House.” To which he revealed that he is indeed working on a new “House” film and it’s a remake.

I’m doing it right now. We are deeply in development. We worked on [a new] HOUSE about four or five years ago and determined that the structure of [the original] is extremely strong, and that just remaking it in modern times wasn’t going to improve it, and wasn’t going to change it. It would have to be rethought, and there had to be a really good reason to do it.

Recently, we came up with—and it sounds so obvious—what if we made a gender switch, so that it’s not a man in the house?” Cunningham continues. “Although they’re not involved, imagine HOUSE starring Kristen Wiig or Melissa McCarthy. It wouldn’t be either one of them…well, it could; I mean, that’s a dream. But suddenly we realized, oh wait, then everything would have to adjust. And also, if we did it that way, it would bring back the fun that HOUSE had. So that’s the direction I’m committed to going in. I would love to make that movie, and I hope to be able to keep all the elements of the personal story from the Bill Katt version and still have it be fun.

So it sounds like it could be a complete revisioning of the original film that places it in a different context, while keeping the core elements that are important to it.  And, if that’s all true, that’s the best thing we could hope for. That’s how you do a remake. You don’t just rehash the same story, you put twists and try to take it in new directions that weren’t explored in the original.  For once I’m gonna say this is a remake that sounds potentially promising.

What do you think? Let us know down below.