By Vincenzo Natali, director of the generally cool Cube and the generally balls-s***ty Splice, has decided on his next feature and, like when he announced he was doing Splice, I am very interested. His next project is called Haunter, and it basically sounds like Beetlejuice played completely straight. The film will revolve around Lisa, a ghost trapped in her house after her and her family are killed in the mid eighties through “sinister circumstances,” so probably some sort of supernatural hoopajoop, and Lisa decides to possess her home’s new occupant, a girl named Olivia, to keep her from dying the same way. See? It’s Beetlejuice, except without Michael Keaton or the sillies.
It’s a little difficult to trust Natali after the mess that was Splice, but this story sounds incredibly intriguing. I’m always a sucker for a good, classic ghost story, and the twist here sounds like a pretty original little trip. I’ll be most interested in what sort of rules the film has for the ghost/spirit world/supernatural whatnots that will inevitably arise. That’s part of what made Beetlejuice so special to me, those oddball rules of ghost activity and the weird bureaucracy of it all. Obviously, something like that isn’t going to show up in Haunter, but I look forward to seeing how they handle the logistics of a main character that’s been Bruce Willis’d right from the start.
[Via /Film]