It’s Rumor Time: Don’t get too excited for Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Pinhead Vs. Danny Trejo
Today in “movie premises that sound too much like comics drawn by a 15-year-old to be true”: A number of horror sites—as well as British music site NME—are reporting on a new horror movie, Death House, with the headline-friendly tagline of “The Expendables of horror.” Purportedly based on an original idea by Gunnar Hansen, a.k.a. “Leatherface”—who died in November, and therefore can’t confirm or deny this report—the script, according to recent reports, focuses on a government facility/prison where homeless people are used as prey for supernatural serial killers in sadistic medical experiments led by two doctors with Nazi ties. Then an EMP explodes, loosing the inmates of this so-called “Area 51 of Evil” and forcing two FBI agents to turn to the “Five Evils,” the worst of the worst contained there, for help.
So yeah, it’s really more like Suicide Squad with horror villains with a little The Cabin In The Woods thrown in for ambience, but whatever. Sounds fun, but the only evidence that Death House is actually being made—besides a press release that came out last summer and includes zero casting information—is the existence of an IMDB page with a couple of photoshopped posters, a threadbare “official website,” a mention of this low-budget production company, and a cast list that includes the following, suspiciously stacked list of horror all-stars:
Robert Englund (a.k.a. Freddy), Kane Hodder (a.k.a Jason), Doug Bradley (a.k.a. Pinhead), Dee Wallace, Danny Trejo, Barbara Crampton, Bill Moseley, Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Ken Foree (Dawn Of The Dead), Don Shanks (Halloween 5), and Camille Keaton (I Spit On Your Grave).
Which would be fine, were it not for the fact that anyone with an IMDB account can submit edits to the cast list for Death House. It’s easy—just log in, click the “Edit” button just above and to the right of the “Cast” section, pick your favorite horror actor, submit their name, and wait a little while. Hell, add yourself if you want. (To test this theory, The A.V. Club submitted an edit of our own, which has yet to be accepted or rejected as of press time.) And even if IMDB’s data editors catch on to your nonsense and your edits don’t go through, you can still add whatever you want in the “Plot Synopsis” section. In fact, this cast list seems to be largely based on a rather fanciful IMDB synopsis of the film, one that director Harrison Smith—who is actually attached to the project—said himself last summer was outdated and incorrect.
So while it’s entirely possible that Hansen had this idea, and now Smith is trying to make it a reality—and perhaps doing a little bit of dream casting in the process—don’t get too excited about Pinhead and Freddy hanging out until you see an official confirmation from the actors themselves. (And, as we learned here today, IMDB doesn’t count.) After all, Doug Bradley wouldn’t even do Hellraiser: Revelations.