Talk Horror The Mouth of Madness
David Gordon Green Is A Busy Little Bee
Say what we might about David Gordon Green, we can’t throw shade at his accomplishments. True, there are quite a few horror fans who were more than a little irritated with his foray into the Halloween franchise, and outraged with his attempt to shoe horn the sensibilities of “modern audiences” into The Exorcist. But he definitely puts in the work to make films.
A Quick Note on The Exorcist: Believer
On a side note, I offer this spoiler: one Priest dies to free Regan MacNeil while the other offers himself up as a vessel for the demon afflicting her before throwing himself out a window and down a flight of stairs to his own death, assuming Exorcist III is retconned by Green’s legacy sequel The Exorcist: Believer. If Merrin and Karras were indeed part of the “damn patriarchy,” it would seem it worked out very well for Chris and Regan, but I digress.
Busy Little Bee Is A Horror Newbie
Green has 17 full length feature film directing credits, 43 television directing credits, 14 writing credits, 52 producing credits, and has been accruing acting credits. To say he’s been very busy would be a significant understatement.
A review of Green’s filmography would suggest that he was not really tied to the horror genre in any meaningful way. Before Halloween (2018), the closest he’d been to horror was with the 2004 thriller Undertow. Perusing his filmography, it would seem that the drama genre was more his forte, and recalling his appearance on The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, his selection of the 1984 thriller Angel for airing makes sense.
David Gordon Green Almost Directed Suspiria?
But, had things worked out differently, Green’s first horror film would’ve come almost a decade earlier with the remake of Dario Argento’s classic Suspiria. The reboot came out in 2018, but directing it was initially offered to Green all the way back in 2008, with filming expected to commence in 2010. Financing conflicts pushed the project first to 2012 before ultimately commencing in 2015 without Green’s participation.
Another untitled horror film was apparently due to be directed by Green in 2013, as well as several episodes of the HBO Hellraiser series announced in 2020. But neither ever came to fruition. Now, after the poor critical and audience reception of The Exorcist: Believer, Green has stepped down from the originally planned The Exorcist: Deceiver.
What Will He Do Next?
While The Exorcist franchise is saved from a concluding chapter similar to the one that grinds the gears of many fans of the Halloween franchise, David Gordon Green’s ideas extended to many other mainstream cultural classics outside of the horror genre. He expressed an interest in being involved in everything from Fat Albert to Little House on the Prairie; from making films about heroin addicts in the Wild West to developing a Garbage Pail Kids animated TV series, the latter of which is still in development.
We may have some strong opinions about David Gordon Green’s contributions to the horror genre, but one thing we can’t say is that the dude doesn’t have a plethora of ideas and a work ethic to match. After reviewing both his videography and some of his unrealized projects, I now understand why, love it or hate it, Halloween Ends ended the way that it did.
