MOVIE NEWS – One of Stephen King’s bleakest novels is being developed as a new film from the directors of Final Destination: Bloodlines, with Sam Raimi involved as a producer. Desperation has previously reached television, but the latest adaptation could deliver the story’s Nevada nightmare on a far larger cinematic scale.

It is difficult to find a Stephen King novel that Hollywood has never attempted to adapt, but Desperation remains one of the author’s less frequently revisited stories. Published in 1996, the book unfolds around an abandoned Nevada mining town where a supernatural force begins taking control of human and animal bodies. The new adaptation is expected to be directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, who are moving to another major horror project following the success of Final Destination: Bloodlines. Sam Raimi is attached as a producer rather than director, leaving the practical responsibility for the desert bloodshed to the filmmaking duo.

A Sheriff Who Makes a Traffic Ticket Look Like the Best Possible Outcome

The story follows travellers crossing Nevada’s Highway 50, where they are stopped and arrested under various pretexts by Sheriff Collie Entragian. He is disturbing enough as a violent police officer, but the situation becomes considerably worse when the prisoners discover that he is being used as a vessel by an ancient entity named Tak. Released from a nearby mine, Tak occupies human bodies in order to interact with the physical world. Those bodies deteriorate rapidly, forcing the creature to seek replacements, while its influence also extends to coyotes, vultures, spiders and other animals.

King’s novel explores grief, religion and the nature of faith while functioning as a ruthless survival horror story. It was previously adapted as a 2006 television film directed by Mick Garris and starring Ron Perlman, but the limits of a TV production prevented that version from fully capturing the apocalyptic scale of King’s desert vision.

Raimi Owed an Early Career Boost to King

Sam Raimi’s connection with Stephen King stretches back several decades. When the original The Evil Dead was still an obscure, low-budget horror film, King published an enthusiastic review that helped the production secure distribution and reach a much wider audience. The new Desperation currently has no announced cast, production date or release window. Lipovsky and Stein have already demonstrated that they can balance elaborate gore with playful morbidity, while Raimi’s involvement suggests that nobody intends to turn King’s Nevada nightmare into a polite sightseeing trip.

Source: MovieWeb.