Beaks here...

Never heard of the Homunculus? Take a good long look.

That little bastard and his buddies have been making it difficult for me to walk down flights of cellar stairs for the last thirty fucking years. Still have no idea what I'm talking about? Well, you need to track down a copy of the 1973 TV Movie DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, which stars Kim Darby as a woman who won't listen to William Demarest (i.e. common sense). As a result, the Homunculi get loose and people die. This shit never happened on MY THREE SONS.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK may not be a classic horror film, but anyone who ran across it on the Creature Feature back in the pre-cable days surely remembers those monsters. Producer Guillermo del Toro and director Troy Nixey are gambling on this with their remake, which a) is scheduled to begin shooting next month in Australia and b) just added a couple of cast members in Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Madison will play the young girl who discovers the strange creatures in her father's house. Pearce will play her disbelieving dad. They'll join Katie Holmes, who was already cast as Pearce's girlfriend.

Del Toro and Matthew Robbins have written the script, and, obviously, reconfigured the plot. This is a good thing, since the original was a little thin on narrative. And yet it's still giving me nightmares.