Nicolas Winding Refn made his name with stylish, arthouse-friendly spins on lurid B-movie material with films like Pusher, Bronson, and, of course, Drive. Now the Daily Grindhouse (via Badass Digest) reports that he may lend some of that same postmodern class to one of the most lurid B-movies to ever tantalize teenagers at the local video store. Writer-director Larry Cohen and producer William Lustig say that Refn is in talks to join the remake of—or as Cohen calls it, “prequel” to—Maniac Cop, their examination of the inherent human flaws in local law enforcement as embodied by a hulking, deranged police officer who kills people in gruesome ways. Cohen admits it’s not yet confirmed that Refn will be involved, nor has the film—which Cohen promises will have “a bigger budget” than the original and its sequels—been “100-percent signed off” on, so at this point it’s all just a bizarrely intriguing suggestion. But given Maniac Cop’s zeal for genre tropes and pulsing synthesizer score, you can see why Refn might be interested. And as with the Evil Dead remake, you can probably expect some premature enthusiasm from Bruce Campbell any minute now.
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