Macabre Daily talks to Jason Jenkins about PHANTOM LIMBS, his upcoming book on unmade horror!
A gem of a cover.
Sometimes it’s easy to take horror franchises for granted. If a horror film is successful, sequels are expected every subsequent year until the series goes out of vogue. We accept the canon that’s presented to us, but what about the scripts that were never produced? Jason “Jinx” Jenkins has answered that question with his Bloody Disgusting column, “Phantom Limbs,” where he would track down unmade scripts and treatments, and interview the people who wrote them.
Jenkins also focused on studio remakes, indie projects, and even a TV show or two. This April, he and Encyclopocalypse Publications are releasing the excellent “Phantom Limbs: Dissecting Horror’s Lost Sequels and Remakes.” The new book contains even more information about unmade horror, from a “Chopping Mall” remake devoid of killbots, to a “Predators” sequel, to Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer’s unmade “Hellraiser” reboot, and even to “Stake Land 3” (which would have absolutely had my money), Jenkins ventures down several fascinating roads not taken. He spoke to me for nearly an hour about the column, the new book, and some of his own “phantom limbs.”
**** DISCLAIMER: This interview was transcribed verbatim and edited only mildly for clarity ****
Macabre Daily: When did you become interested in the stories behind unmade films?
Jason Jenkins: I would say it goes back to being a horror nerd in the 90s. The internet wasn’t a thing yet, so if you were a horror fan, your resources were VHS tapes of horror films and Fangoria. I remember running across an amazing 2-part interview with Peter Jackson, who was promoting “The Frighteners” at the time. He took a few paragraphs to talk about a script he wrote for [the 6th entry of] “A Nightmare on Elm Street” that didn’t get made. I wasn’t a super-savvy film fan, but the notion that someone like Peter Jackson would write a screenplay and it wouldn’t be produced was kind of mindblowing. He hadn’t made “Lord of the Rings” yet, but he had still made some pretty cool stuff by that point. That really kick-started my interest in films that were developed but went unmade. I had already read about the making of “Halloween 6” in Fangoria, where a film was shot, cut, and then heavily edited to make it a different film, at least in the back half.
I'm an all-around film nerd, but the thing about unmade movies that captures my interest is that they’re like forbidden fruit in a way. We’re never going to be able to see them or have them on our shelves. They’re held from us in a way, but if we do our research and meet the filmmakers halfway with what we find, be it a pitch or a script synopsis, maybe we can imagine it in our heads. In a way, it’s weirdly collaborative.
In early 2020, when the plague was a mild concern before the world shut down, Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman” trailer dropped and I thought it looked amazing. It occurred to me that I really wanted to dig into what [original “Candyman” director] Bernard Rose envisioned as a sequel in the 90’s. I reached out to him to see if he’d be willing to talk about it for Bloody Disgusting and he delighted me by agreeing to it. We had a great one-hour chat about what it would have been, I wrote it up, tied it into the upcoming film, and that was all it was ever meant to be. Then someone in the comments said “I wish someone would write a book about all these unmade films. I’d buy it in an instant.” I thought “I’m never going to write a book, but it would make for a neat recurring column.”
I had Todd Farmer (screenwriter/co-star of “Jason X,’ “My Bloody Valentine 3D” and the unmade “Halloween 3D”) on my podcast, and I asked him if he’d be willing to discuss the unmade sequel to “My Bloody Valentine 3D.” That article went up, and I took a walk to come up with a title for the column. Then my editor, John Squires said for social media, it’s good to come up with a title that makes it apparent immediately what it’s about. “Lost Horror Films,” or “Unmade Horror Films” or something snappier. Both of those films were sequels that didn’t exist, so what title would encapsulate that? I went with “Phantom Limbs,” which limits me to unmade films in existing franchises.
This, and other concept art for the unmade “Hellraiser” reboot can be found in “Phantom Limbs.” Photo courtesy of Gary J. Tunnicliffe and Maury Ruiz.
That got the ball rolling. I had the titles, and the contents, and I went through old Fangorias to read “The Terror Teletype” to see what films were announced but ultimately didn’t get made. I went on Wikipedia and used my own recollections. One of my early “gets” was an intended sequel to Clive Barker’s “Lord of Illusions.”
MD: He wrote a whole new script?
JJ: Well “Phantom Limbs” has a few phantom limbs of its own. I can’t get too into it, but I’m a huge Clive Barker fan. I adore his work and anything involving his worlds. Of the three films he directed, I think his best is “Lord of Illusions.” At a certain point, it was going to become a straight-to-DVD franchise. Every few years, it would be teased on Barker’s website. When I started making a list of people I wanted to reach out to, this was one of the earliest ones. I reached out to the screenwriter and we had a great interview. I typed up the article, and he was going to allow Bloody Disgusting to run the entire script. This was a 25-year-old script for a straight-to-DVD film that never got made, and it probably wouldn’t have been that incendiary. He wanted to reach out to Barker to ask if it was allowed. I want to take pains to point out here that I’ve met Clive Barker a few times, and he’s the nicest man in the world. From what I’ve heard from friends of friends of his, he would have been keen to run it, but the screenwriter could only get a hold of Barker’s reps. This killed the notion of publishing the script, as well as the article. That taught me early on not to get too excited and attached until they’re out in the world in print.
MD: Speaking of your phantom limbs, are there any unmade projects you haven’t been able to fully research or get an interview with the creatives?
JJ: So many. There are projects I know that exist and when I’ve reached out to them or their reps, I haven’t heard anything. I’d love to talk with Rob Zombie about “The Crow: 2037” or his remake of “The Blob.” I'd also love to talk to Guillermo Del Toro about “Hellboy 3.” Candace Hilligoss, the lead actress from “Carnival of Souls,'' wrote a sequel to that film and tried to get it made, resulting in the straight-to-video remake. The original is one of my favorite films, and reading about the remake in Fangoria I thought it could be something. Then I watched it [Laughs]. Adding insult to injury, [Candace] stirred up enough interest in that project to get it made, but was ultimately booted from it. It’s heartbreaking, and I’d love to know what story she would have told. She wrote a memoir that everyone should pick up, and I reached out to her a few times. She’s lovely, but it was such a painful experience, she doesn’t want to revisit it, which I respect. I have a list of probably 80 films I’m still trying to track people down for.
MD: The chapters have a specific structure where you summarize the project, then go in-depth with the creatives behind it. Do you still work on the summary if you haven’t yet secured the people behind it?
JJ: As far as I know, there were only a few instances where I wrote an article without the creatives involved. One was John Saxon’s “Nightmare on Elm Street” prequel, since Mr. Saxon had sadly passed away. But we had this cool document and the backstory behind how it was found. Then I visited the amazing George A. Romero Collection in Pittsburgh. Ben Rubin, the gentleman who oversees it, lent context to several unmade Romero projects, and Robin Hardy’s sons talk about their father’s unfinished “Wicker Man” trilogy in the book. In those cases, I thought there was enough context [to cover the films]. Otherwise, it’s very interview-led. If I can’t get someone who was involved, generally the writers, I really don’t care to pursue it. I love hearing about and writing about what the project would have been, but I also love the context that the creatives place those stories in. Talking about how they developed them and what happened behind the scenes.
There’s one script I love, that I could easily synopsize, but I can’t get in touch with any of the creatives. Would I write it being able to talk about the script without the backstory of the development? By the rules I’ve set for myself, I can’t. It’s one I’m sitting on right now, not so patiently [Laughs].
“The Wrath of the Gods” was slated to be Robin Hardy’s third entry in his “Wicker Man” trilogy (Poster by Richard Wells).
MD: For me, the centerpiece of the book is the chapter on the unmade Lussier/Farmer “Hellraiser” script. I never thought I’d find out what was in that screenplay, and you gave us the rundown of THREE full drafts, and how they evolved (or since the Weinsteins were involved, how they devolved). Now, do you usually read the scripts before talking to the writers?
JJ: Sometimes, yes, sometimes no. In the case of “Hellraiser,” I spoke to Mr. Lussier first, and he gave me some broad background information, then I spoke to Mr. Farmer, who filled in some of the blanks. I’d previously heard the initial pitch on, I believe it was “The Movie Crypt” podcast.
MD: I remember that. They mentioned 2 teaser poster designs before the Weinsteins told them to make it more like “Chronicle.”
JJ: The impression I got was that there wasn’t a whole lot to that pitch beyond some vague ideas that never happened. Now, the interviews were fantastic. They gave me so much backstory about dealing with the Weinsteins and the 3 treatments, but as far as the story they wanted to tell, it was one of those things where I’m tentatively asking “so…do you think I can read those treatments? [Laughs].” They were gracious enough to let me, so I was able to synopsize them and I realized we’d only seen the tip of the iceberg. I had 60 pages between the 3 treatments.
MD: When you’re reading multiple drafts of a project, can you suss out studio notes? Inorganic elements that you can tell the writers didn’t come up with?
JJ: Yes, especially when I have the writers there to tell me exactly what happened, but especially with each draft of “Hellraiser,” you can tell where the Weinsteins got in there. The initial pitch was elegant and horrific, but also big and action-packed. It fused their sensibilities with Barker’s in a beautiful way. I think they described it as Jack Bauer meets “National Treasure,” meets “Hellraiser,” When you get to the second draft, you can tell the Weinsteins saying “Hey, let’s young it up a little bit.” The third draft would have been a teen flick that wouldn’t have served what they were trying to do. You can tell it’s their least favorite, but of course, they would have done the best job possible with that draft.
It was such a bummer because they had some amazing ideas. They wrote a blockbuster “Hellraiser,” which of course they were told to write, but when they handed in their epic version, they were told “Wait, we didn’t mean THAT. Can the epic happen just offscreen?”
MD: That sounds like a common note. John Skipp and Craig Spector said something similar [in the “Never fall Asleep” documentary] when they handed in their initial draft of “Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.”
JJ: I adore Skipp and Spector. When I was at the Romero collection, there was a treatment for a film adaptation of “The Light at the End,” which I didn’t have time to read. George A. Romero would have done an amazing job with that story.
Jason “Jinx” Jenkins
Interview edited for length and clarity. “Phantom Limbs'' is available for pre-order now from Encyclopocalypse Publications, and will be available April 2 wherever books are sold.
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