Get the latest gossip
Making the Public Domain Even More Horrifying: Modest Proposals for Turning 1920s Classics Into Slasher Fare, From Mickey to Hemingway (Column)
A satirical look at how this year's new public domain entries could be turned into horror, from Mickey Mouse and Popeye to Hemingway and Faulkner.
It’s become an annual ritual: Every Jan. 1, more classic works of art or characters enter the public domain, and exploitation filmmakers with a tiny budget and a big taste for grisliness are scouring the list, looking for suddenly free intellectual property to turn into horror fare. Yes, including Popeye, the seeming innocent who arguably always had a bit of the glint of a serial killer in his eye — but also less obvious fare like Hemingway and Faulkner novels, a Marx Brothers comedy, sweet little Tintin, and even big, bad Virginia Woolf, of whom you should be very afraid. Because alienated young German soldier Paul Bäumer has systematically slaughtered every one of his unsuspecting WWI army pals during quiet moments in the trenches when others are distracted by mortar shells, disguising the series of grisly murders as standard combat fatalities.
Or read this on Variety
