Toss a machete and you’re bound to hit one of a dozen horror series currently in development for TV, on top of the ones that already exist. This isn’t a complaint, as all of television could be horror and I’d be a Neilson family all by myself. And while modernized adaptations of horror novels and films are to be expected, I didn’t see this one coming. Deadline reports ABC Family has acquired the high-profile spec script The Final Girls, which will reunite Jamie Lee Curtis with director Steve Miner, and will bring them both back to the genre that jump started their careers.
No pilot or series order has been given the green light just yet, but it looks like this one will be coming together quickly. The script, written by Jeff Dixon, is focused on a group of girls that are all survivors of their own horrific incidents, and a mysterious older woman, played by Curtis, brings them all together to turn their mental damage and stress into something better. It isn’t clear if that means she’ll make them go for vigilante vengeance like Dexter or perhaps something more introspective. Given the lack of subtlety involved with ABC Family series, I’m guessing it’s the latter.
The whole “final girl” horror stereotype was arguably established by Curtis herself in John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 horror Halloween, and was then taken to abundant extremes by hundreds, if not thousands, of genre films released in the decades afterward. Steve Miner, meanwhile, began his career by directing the second and third entries into the Friday the 13th franchise, a series that only exists because of Halloween. He then went on to direct the completely out there comedy horror House and ruined my childhood for a few weeks.
Curtis and Miner first worked together on 1992’s drama Forever Young, but that’s hardly on topic, so it’s fitting that they got together again for 1998’s Halloween H2O, a movie that wasn’t that good at the time and hasn’t really held up at all. But it brought Curtis back to that franchise, so it’s worth its weight in LL Cool J’s jaw.
Miner, with the exception of 2008’s abysmal Day of the Dead remake, has largely transitioned out of horror features, spending most of his time directing TV episodes. It’s no surprise ABC Family is interested in getting him involved, as he’s worked on both Make It or Break It and Switched at Birth for the network in the last few years.
Curtis, meanwhile, has also been working in TV as of late, with appearances on NCIS and New Girl, but she’ll be seen in the upcoming Veronica Mars feature, and she’s also set to star in the action comedy Spychosis, co-written by her True Lies co-star Tom Arnold. Hold your applause.
You say you just need to watch the Halloween H2O trailer right now? Well here you go.
