The first Brad Anderson film I saw was Session 9. (I also spent $27 on the out-of-print DVD, which I've watched at least three times in the last year. It's a great movie.) And then I saw his dark and twisted love letter to Alfred Hitchcock: The Machinist. Wow. Aside from Christian Bale's staggering performance, it's just a rock-solid, old-fashioned mind-bender of a noir thriller. Good stuff. Most recently I saw the director's train-bound and icy chiller Transsiberian at Sundance, which (shocking!) I also enjoyed quite a bit.

Which leads us to a logical question. What can Brad Anderson fans expect next? According to Bloody-Disgusting, the writer / director is not straying far from the genre fare any time soon. First on the filmmaker's plate looks to be All Lost Souls, which is a "serial killer movie," and then perhaps Vanishing, which Anderson describes as "a smart post-apocalyptic horror film." Sounds good so far.

But even further down the road, Anderson could be looking at a remake of the 1943 occult flick The Seventh Victim -- and a Cronenbergian thriller called Concrete Island, which just might reunite the director with two of his Machinist collaborators: screenwriter Scott Kosar and low-key superstar Christian Bale. And to all those projects, I say this: Cool. Get to work, Brad!

[ Thanks to Bloody-Dee for the cool info. ]

I could have sworn I did a little piece on the planned remake of George Romero's The Crazies, but the Cinematical search function seems to believe otherwise. But a while back it was mentioned that director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Scott Kosar (who once collaborated to give us The Machinist) very well might be getting back together for a remake of Romero's 1973 infection thriller ... and then we heard nothing.

Odds are that Mr. Anderson has moved on to other projects, but according to gory sources, the remake is not nearly dead. Seems that producers Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar have tapped a second writer (Ray Wright) to help the project along. We'll let Mr. Wright's debut (the wretched Pulse remake) slide and look forward to his Case 39, which stars Renee Zellweger and opens on August 22.

When the producers decided to finally ash-can this remake because nobody aside from hardcore horror fans even remember The Crazies (which means the title isn't nearly as marketable as Halloween, Chainsaw or Prom Night), we'll be sure to let you know.

Desperately looking for that leading lady cachet that comes only with starring in movies like Gothika, Dark Water and The Reaping, recent Oscar winner Reese Witherspoon has decided to leap aboard the genre wagon and earn herself some shrieks -- along with a nice paycheck from Universal.

Ms. Witherspoon has signed to star in something called Bell Witch. Apparently it's about a woman who becomes convinced that a legendary witch is out to harm her little baby. Eek! The screenwriter on the scene is Scott Kosar, a man who has dabbled in genre flicks solid (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), weak (The Amityville Horror) and surprisingly excellent (The Machinist). In addition to Bell Witch, Kosar is still working on that remake of Romero's The Crazies.

But when I said that Reese "signed" for the gig, that wasn't entirely accurate. Seems the actress took a fancy to a spec script called Our Family Troubles, and now that screenplay goes over to Kosar for a Witherspoon retrofitting. No word yet on who'll be directing Bell Witch, but I'm hoping it's not going to be someone safe, generic and boring.

An American Haunting was also based on the legend of the Bell Witch. For more info on the old gal, try Wiki.