We've already had remakes of A NIghtmare On Elm Street, Last House On The Left and The Hills Have Eyes. Now with Scream heading to MTV, Wes Craven is digging yet again in his back catalogue for another project to dust off himself. The one he's come up with is The People Under The Stairs, which he's developing as a series for Universal Cable Productions and SyFy.
The original People is a 1991 horror about an LA ghetto kid who stumbles into the house of Mommy and Daddy Robeson and finds a community of cannibal children hiding in the cracks. Many have noted the resemblance of the Robesons (Everett McGill and Wendy Robie) to Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and therefore interpreted the film as a bitter satire on American society.
But Craven has always denied that political reading, and the pitch for the series seems very different anyway. We're told it's being touted as "a contemporary Downton Abbey meets Amityville Horror", with centuries-old horrors discovered deep within an estate after a girl goes missing.
Michael Reisz (Shadowhunters, Unforgettable) will write the pilot and is also among the exec-producers with Craven. The deal with UCP also sees Craven working on a near-future sci-fi series called Disciples, and an episodic adaptation of Daryl Gregory's novel We Are All Completely Fine, about an unusual psychotherapist who runs a support group for survivors of horror scenarios. Craven will write and direct that one himself.
“Universal... is the home of an amazing slate of TV programming and I’m delighted to be working with them,” says Craven. “Fasten your seatbelts.”