Jordan Peele to Produce Remake of Wes Craven’s ‘The People Under The Stairs’
Fans of Wes Craven‘s 1991 horror movie The People Under The Stairs will be happy to hear that it is set to be remade by Universal. Jordan Peele is on board as producer, alongside frequent collaborator Win Rosenfeld.
In the 1991 original, two adults and a teen break into the house of a malevolent pair of slumlords. They find a lot more than they bargained for, in the form of feral children, murderous maniacs and deadly booby traps.
Although it is currently unclear whether the pair will have any hand in writing the script, The People Under The Stairs is a perfect match for Peele’s brand of biting satirical horror. Craven’s most overtly political work, the film was a condemnation of the greed and injustice of the Reagan era, with an incestuous pair of evil landlords acting as obvious stand-ins for the president and first lady. The film takes on patriarchy, racial inequality and the callous disregard that the wealthy held for the poor under the unrestrained free-for-all of neoliberalism. With these issues having only intensified in the years since the original’s release, a remake could be a very timely satire.
While the original has a cult following, it never quite reached the wide audience that it deserved. Mixing incisive social comedy with an anarchic and cheeky sense of fun, we would be more than happy to return to the Robeson house.