Continuing its relentless trudge through classic horror remakes, Hollywood has dusted off another pulse-popper in the shape of Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher.
Sophia Bush, she of US teen drama One Tree Hill, will play one half of a travelling couple who pick up a mysterious hitcher, only to have him stalk them and make their lives hell.
In the 1986 original, C Thomas Howell pulled up curbside for the creepy serial killer Rutger Hauer. Howell escapes the killer’s clutches but Hauer is soon back in his life, haunting him and setting him up for his crimes.
Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes production company are holding the purse strings after relative success revisiting The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. Newbie Eric Brent and Jake Wade Wall penned the script – Wade Wall is co-scribbler of another imminent blood-spiller rehash, When A Stranger Calls.
Meanwhile, over at Dimension Films, the suits have snaffled up the rights to Mara Leveritt’s book Devil’s Knot: The True Story Of The West Memphis Three.
The tale centres on a shocking multiple murder in Arkansas in which three children were savagely killed. The police arrested three local teens within weeks and despite a leaky case, they were convicted. The defendants were painted as Satanists due to their love of hard rock band Metallica and were known to be fans of Anne Rice and Stephen King novels. Signed on for typewriter duties are Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman - the men behind the pen on The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.
