At this point in time, Walt Disney Studios, has almost all of its bases covered when it comes to genres. They have musicals, comedies, dramas, action-adventures, superheroes, and science fiction. But something that has been lacking in the history of Disney is a horror movie. Yes, many of the movies they have made include some pretty spine-chilling scenes, but when it comes to just an unabashed horror film, its been a while. In 1983 we had Something Wicked This Way Comes, that many look back fondly upon as a film that gave them nightmares. Take a look at the trailer for the movie.
This is a horror film, through and through, but something you didn’t see, was the word “Disney” anywhere in that trailer. So clearly Disney doesn’t have to be straightforward with the release of a horror film. Disney no longer owns Miramax, as of 2010, but it still has Touchstone, and who’s to say Disney couldn’t create a new studio for films of a darker subject matter.
Disney’s last two major attempts at movies with a horror background were The Haunted Mansion and Frankenweenie. The Haunted Mansion was not a success, critically or financially. While Frankenweenie did surpass its budget, this could mostly be attributed to its budget being so low in the first place. So clearly horror films don’t have the best track record with Disney. Even Something Wicked This Way Comes was a bomb at the box-office.
Previously, in 2009, Disney had announced a partnership with Guillermo del Toro to create a new project of products, including films, entitled Disney Double Dare You. Del Toro is not only a fantastic and experimental director, but also a great lover of horror. But in an interview with Deadline, in 2010, he stated that that idea would not come to fruition, citing timing and delays as the key factors. Del Toro, as of an interview last summer, is still working on a new Haunted Mansion film. Though he is a fantastic director, del Toro has a habit of stating his intentions for projects and then giving up on them, or just never following through on them. It would be great to see a Haunted Mansion film directed by del Toro, but it is amongst the many projects that he has planned, so it would be unlikely to see it come out before the end of the decade. These announcements did confirm that Disney is definitely trying to do something with the genre, and at least has the seeds planted for the future.
However the market for “family-friendly” horror movies is one that no one currently dominates. The making of a well-done palatable horror movie would benefit the film industry, specifically Disney, in two ways. Firstly you cannot put a price on recognition, the phrase goes that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Right now Disney dominates the dreams of children (Princess’, Pirates, Superheroes), but what if it also dominated the nightmares? So the goal would be to create a horror film that didn’t mentally scar children, but gave them an equivalent feeling that current horror gives to adults. After all they make rollercoasters for children, so follow the same basic principle and tone down the thrill level. A fact that seems to be lost on some is that children like similar things to adults, they just have a lower tolerance for them. The second way that this would benefit filmmaking is by giving revitalization to horror that doesn’t rely on gore and jump-scares to scare its audience. Right now the horror movies that major studios are making are quite obvious in the way they scare the audience. So if a studio made a horror film that wasn’t explicit (so younger audiences could watch), but was actually good (so adults would want to see it), then Hollywood could see a rebirth of the genre. I’m not saying that we should do away with horror that doesn’t follow this method. What I am saying is that if making a horror film like the one I am describing is possible, then the studio to do it could see major success in it, and who’s to say that that studio couldn’t be the same one that made Frozen.
It was reported last month that Disney will be remaking Something Wicked This Way Comes, under the direction of Seth Grahame-Smith. Grahame-Smith wrote the successful parody novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is currently in preproduction for an adaptation, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which has already been adapted. He also wrote the screenplay for the remake of Dark Shadows, which, while lacking in coherency in the overall plot, had deft and suitable dialogue. So his adaptation of Something Wicked This Way Comes could be good, but at this point I doubt it will be rocking the boat when it comes out.