Jason KingSecond Book from LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Author is Coming to Film
November 3rd 2010 20:55
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Handling the Undead
Category: Interesting
In an L.A. Times article about the impending invasion of Norwegians is a brief blurb about author John Ajvide Lindqvist's follow-up to LET THE RIGHT ONE IN being shopped around Hollywood; the book is a zombie tale called HANDLING THE UNDEAD, and considering what he did with vampires in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, it should come as no surprise that his story of the living dead is an unconventional one.
In HANDLING THE UNDEAD, 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.
HANDLING THE UNDEAD isn't exactly new; it was first published in 2005, but only last year did the version translated into English come out. A Swedish adaptation has been in the works for a while now, though without much headway. I would very much like to see how the Swedish would make this one - I think they did a better job on Let The Right One In. I have read both books and they are good but this one is no where as good as Let The Right One In - it is VERY slow and is less about brain eating zombies as opposed to reanimated dead people, it is also a social look at quarantine and how to deal with people in this situation. It would be the first heartbreaking sad and romantic look at the Zombie genre and for this I am keen to see it on film but it would have to be made by someone with extreme eye for detail and how to keep the audience engaged through emotional attachment to characters. It also lacks a sufficient ending and I would be worried as to what a Hollywood studio would do with the ending.
So this not the usual zombie shuffle... And while the Times article isn't meant to indicate that there's some kind of done deal in place for Lindqvist's book, we all know that original horror, zombie and vampire films are being searched for everywhere.
Special thanks to JoBlo.com for this info.
In HANDLING THE UNDEAD, 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.
HANDLING THE UNDEAD isn't exactly new; it was first published in 2005, but only last year did the version translated into English come out. A Swedish adaptation has been in the works for a while now, though without much headway. I would very much like to see how the Swedish would make this one - I think they did a better job on Let The Right One In. I have read both books and they are good but this one is no where as good as Let The Right One In - it is VERY slow and is less about brain eating zombies as opposed to reanimated dead people, it is also a social look at quarantine and how to deal with people in this situation. It would be the first heartbreaking sad and romantic look at the Zombie genre and for this I am keen to see it on film but it would have to be made by someone with extreme eye for detail and how to keep the audience engaged through emotional attachment to characters. It also lacks a sufficient ending and I would be worried as to what a Hollywood studio would do with the ending.
So this not the usual zombie shuffle... And while the Times article isn't meant to indicate that there's some kind of done deal in place for Lindqvist's book, we all know that original horror, zombie and vampire films are being searched for everywhere.
Special thanks to JoBlo.com for this info.
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Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
I'm excited as punch.....
I just did two back to back reviews of Let The Right One In and also Let Me in, be a good chap and check them out some time...
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
You should read the books, if you're a reader - this one is very interesting. Let The Right One In is insanely awesome!!