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Viewers Soon 'Handling the Undead' by John Ajvide Lindqvist?
by Ethan Anderton
November 3, 2010
Source: 24 Frames
After penning the popular Swedish vampire novel Let the Right One In which spawned both a foreign and American adaptation, it looks like another horror novel from author John Ajvide Lindqvist might be heading to the big screen. In the same 24 Frames article talking about Universal's acquisition of the remake rights for The Troll Hunter and the recent Scandinavian influence on the industry, it's also revealed that Lindqvist's novel Handling the Undead will soon be shopped around to U.S. studios to strike a film deal. Though the prospect of another unique story in the zombie category is enticing, Frank Darabont may have already done that.
If you're not familiar with the book that was published back in 2005 and translated into English just last year, here's the official synopsis:
Stockholm is overtaken by the undead after a period of strange weather, and the uprising has surprising consequences for several people, including David, a comedian whose dead wife comes back to life; self-harming psychic teenagers Flora and Elvy; and journalist Gustav Mahler, whose only hope of saving his daughter and himself from grief lies in exhuming his young grandson and hoping the boy will be reanimated.
In addition, the description Amazon calls it "a horror novel that transcends its genre by showing what the return of the dead might really mean to those who loved them." That sounds like it has a lot of the emotional weight that AMC's adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comic book series The Walking Dead by Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont (you can read my review of last weekend's series premiere right here). And much like Let the Right One In wasn't your everyday vampire story, I'm sure the same can be said about Handling the Undead and its zombie centric tale (though I haven't read the book). We're not sure how soon a deal might be made, or if a studio will even end up picking it up, but we'll keep you posted. What do you guys think?
3 Comments
1
i don't like the sound of this at all.
beavis on Nov 3, 2010
2
I just hope they(Hollywood) rape it to death like they do with everything else, I love it when that happens, bring on the clones, it'll be like Japanese horror all over again. At least with these ones the ghosts won't all have the silly hair.
Crapola on Nov 3, 2010
3
The book was a very interesting, quite unique look at the zombie genre. Just like the Let the Right One In novel, there are some subplots that the film could probably do without, but if done right, this could be fantastic.
Leon on Nov 3, 2010
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