Movies
‘Paranormal’ Producer to Mine ‘Fate’ Magazine for Ideas
Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions and Picture Shack Entertainment’s George Plamondon and Betsy Schechter plan to mine Fate Magazine for spooky stories, says THR.
The red-hot producer of the Paranormal Activity film franchise and the team behind A&E’s unscripted series “Paranormal State” are about to become strange bedfellows.Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions and Picture Shack Entertainment’s George Plamondon and Betsy Schechter have optioned rights to Fate Magazine, a long-running chronicler of the odd and unexplained, with an eye toward mining its library of thousands of stories for television and film.
Fate, founded in 1948, tells tales of flying saucers, close encounters, poltergeists and more. The cult magazine, based in Lakeville, Minn., has served as a well of inspiration for Plamondon and Schechter in creating various series, including Animal Planet’s paranormal docuseries “The Haunted.”
Launched by Amazing Stories editor Raymond A. Palmer and Curtis Fuller, Fate has published first-person accounts of the macabre as well as investigative features and the occasional story debunking dubious claims. 
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
You must be logged in to post a comment.