Another good sign for Disney? What is THE BANSHEE & FIN MAGEE?
Published at: Feb. 22, 2006, 9:10 a.m. CST by staff
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I know that us reporting on random live-action Disney stuff is a bit out of the ordinary, but there is hope with this project, a side of Disney I never expected to see again.
Anybody remember the Disney flicks that were essentially horror for kids? They did it animation-style (I remember being scared of Disney's THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW... not to mention how much of a horror show aspects of DUMBO (Elephants on parade, anyone?) and ALICE IN WONDERLAND (the whole movie, anyone?) are).
I'm actually thinking of their live-action stuff, though. Specifically their early '80s horror for kids, like the underseen WATCHER IN THE WOODS and the flat out brilliant SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.
I never thought we'd see something like again. It seems that horror for kids means THE FOG these days. We still never may see a couple of films like those above again, but this project announced in the trades today caught my eye.
The story centers on a little boy who is an outcast and is always pretending to be a ghost. He comes into contact with a real spirit who is being pursued by an evil Banshee. The adventure goes from there.
I'm not saying this will be great or even a return to form, but the hope is there. Robert Nelson Jacobs is a question mark... he did write DINOSAUR... I'm assuming a good amount of that script was written by 28 studio execs, so I'm not going to lay the entire blame at his feet for that (unless he wrote any of the annoying talking Jar-Jar monkey character... then he must be tortured like we were)...
All I'm saying is this project gives me a sliver of hope... It might be a fool's hope, but it's hope nonetheless.
