Many filmmakers have tried and failed to make a follow-up to John Carpenter’s The Thing. In the early 2000s, director Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption) pitched a miniseries sequel that the studio rejected, and a prequel movie from the screenwriter of Arrival launched in 2011 to brutal reviews. Even Carpenter himself hasn’t been able to craft a worthy successor to his horror sci-fi classic. Now, we can add two more names to that list: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.
The duo first made a name for themselves when they wrote and produced A Quiet Place. Since then, they’ve written and directed a series of low-budget horror movies, with the latest being Heretic from A24. But the duo tells Inverse that, at one point, they took a serious run at writing the most impossible horror sequel of all time.
“There was a sequel idea for The Thing that we certainly had that we think could be provocative from a character standpoint, first and foremost, rather than just cashing in on what otherwise is one of the greatest horror films of all time,” Beck says. “I'm not sure that's something that we would ever be pitching on, but it's certainly something that stuck around.”
That juicy detail comes in response to my question about what existing horror franchises Beck and Woods would want to take on if given the chance, and before moving on they offer one more possibility.
“Resident Evil was a video game we grew up on before we even broke into the film industry,” Beck says. “We always wanted to combine the aesthetics of Gus Van Sant's death trilogy like Last Days or Gerry with the movie Resident Evil. You're going through a house and it’s a lingering camera and it’s more about the fear of suspense of what might come out. But there’s so many Resident Evil movies that have now been made that I don't feel like that’s as fertile ground.”
Sadly, it doesn’t seem we’ll get to see Beck and Woods’ take on either The Thing or Resident Evil anytime soon (if ever), but when it comes to the horror franchise they helped launch, the duo say they’re open to returning to the Quiet Place universe — for the right idea, of course.
Returning to A Quiet Place
Beck and Woods got their start when they sold their script for The Quiet Place, which would go on to launch an entire horror franchise based on the concept of alien monsters who track humans by sound. The duo hasn’t been involved in the series since, with John Krasinski directing the first two before handing over control to Michael Sarnoski for the prequel film Day One. However, they say they’d return under the right circumstances.
“I'd never say never,” Beck teases. “If we ever return to the Quiet Place universe, then it'd have to be the boldest idea possible. I’ll say this jokingly, but maybe check back in 10 years and we’ll be serious: It’d have to be the Heretic equivalent of Quiet Place, where it’s pure dialogue and you show up at the theater being like, how the hell are they going to pull that off? That's what interests us. That's what we want to shoot for with everything that we're doing moving forward.”
“I think we also get a sadistic thrill out of creating something that everyone's like, That'll never work. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” adds Woods, “and then doing our best to make that work.”
That drive to pull off the impossible is what inspired Beck and Woods to write A Quiet Place, which grew out of a desire to “combine the genre of horror with our love of silent film,” Beck says.
In the years since, The Quiet Place universe has continued to explore that original concept, with the latest entry in the franchise, the prequel Day One, even introducing a Charlie Chaplin-esque pantomime as a pivotal plot point.
“We love what [director] Michael Sarnoski did with Day One and some of our favorite moments of that film are the quiet moments,” Beck says, “like the puppet show that's towards the beginning or the quiet moments that Joseph and Lupita are trying to communicate in this room that they stay in for the night. It is those things to us that are so special about that universe. It's that touch of character that was always important from the get-go, but we love seeing brought to life in the subsequent movies. It's not just a horror film. It needs to be steeped in its characters and its emotional core.”
It’s this approach that guides all of Beck and Woods’ movies, leading right up to their latest release.
“That combination is something we've always loved trying to bring to the screen,” Beck says, “and it's something we hope is prevalent in Heretic, too, where it’s scary, hopefully intellectually stimulating, but also has an emotional core to it as well.”
