Some enterprising photographer recently noticed that Dekalb Avenue in Brooklyn, in front of Long Island University, was the scene of filming on Famke Janssen's new movie 100 Feet, and started snapping photos. To be honest, there's not really a lot here -- just a photo of Janssen and Bobby Cannavale cooling their heels between takes, and one of director Eric Red giving some kind of guidance to a crew member during a set-up. If anyone out there is hanging around this area of Brooklyn, and the crew is still there, snap some more photos for us! Back in February we passed on to you the news of Janssen's casting, and referred to the film as a 'haunted house thriller.' We also noted that director Red had gone on record as saying he wanted to evoke Audrey Hepburn's performance in Wait Until Dark with this film. For those who haven't seen it, Wait Until Dark is about a blind woman who becomes the target of a gang of burglars.

The most updated plot description of 100 Feet is that it's about a woman named Marnie (Janssen) who is granted an early release from prison after killing her crazy husband in self defense, on the condition that she wear one of those Disturbia bracelets. Once confined to her apartment, she finds herself dealing with two problems -- the crazy partner of her crazy dead husband, who wants to take revenge on her for that killing, and the actual ghost of her dead husband, who isn't finished with her either. "100 Feet" refers to the range of her ankle monitor thing.

Jan de Bont and John Cusack? OK, sure, why not? According to the unending series of Cannes news reports at Variety, the director of Speed and that lovable guy from Say Anything are about to collaborate on Stopping Power, a $50 million action flick about a normal Joe test pilot who must rescue his daughter from evil kidnappers while vacationing in Germany. Production begins in August, and although the package has sold to a few foreign markets, we should expect some U.S. distribution news sooner rather than later.

What's particularly enticing about this project (aside from it marking Cusack's return to the action genre, a section he's avoided since his very amusing turn in Con Air) is that Mr. De Bont is promising to finish the flick with a 51-minute chase sequence. And it get even better: The story was hatched by Eric Red, the scribe who (once upon a time) penned The Hitcher and Near Dark, both of which are unquestionable classics of the horror genre because I said so. (Apparently Swordfish screenwriter Skip Woods also worked on the Stopping Power script.) The only sticking point (for me) is the involvement of Jan de Bont, a stellar cinematographer who graduated to director on the effortlessly entertaining Speed ... and then followed it up with Twister, Speed 2, The Haunting and Tomb Raider 2. Yikes.

Maybe if we all wish hard enough, John Cusack's latest role will wipe out the Children of Men rip-off, Talking with Dog, which still (luckily) hasn't gone into production. The rest of the films on his plate have already wrapped or gone into production. There's War, Inc., where Cusack plays a hit man assigned to kill a Middle East oil minister. With Mark Leyner's mind attached, it will undoubtedly go above and beyond what we could imagine. And there's Igor, the animated, star-studded evil science fair, movie that he took over from Christian Slater. Now, Cusack has signed on for an action thriller, of all things.

The film is called Stopping Power. (Doesn't it sound like something Steven Seagal would be in?) It will be directed by Jan de Bont, who started off with a bang with films like Speed and Twister, but then petered out a bit with Speed 2: Cruise Control and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. Or, more appropriately, crashed and burned with the former and then petered out with the latter. The film, which will be written by Swordfish scribe Skip Woods and Hitcher scribe Eric Red, is about "a test pilot who sets off on a series of high-speed chases to save his kidnapped daughter from an escaped thief."

Woods seems to be a new addition to the roster, as IMDb lists only Red. The site also describes the plot a little differently: "A criminal on the run steals an RV with a young girl inside, then forces the girl's father to participate in his getaway by acting as a decoy for the police." I'm anxious to see if Cusack just picked this up for something different, or if it will be his gateway into action. Remember -- Bruce Willis was the goofy guy on Moonlighting well before he was John McClane.

I've never seen any of the films written or directed by Eric Red -- unlike Scott, who is a big fan -- but I like the sound of his comeback effort, 100 Feet. It involves a woman under house arrest for killing her abusive husband, who just so happens to be haunting the house she can't leave. Sounds like a combination of Cherish, Double Jeopardy and The Gravedancers, all of which I enjoyed to some degree (and two of which starred cast members of Prison Break -- not that this is important).

Now, in addition to liking the premise, I like the star of 100 Feet, too. JoBlo.com exclusively announced that Famke Janssen will play the captive/terrorized woman, and the site quoted Red as saying he plans for her to evoke Audrey Hepburn's Oscar-nominated performance in Wait Until Dark. I like Janssen a lot and think she's due for a role that takes her acting talents serious, but I doubt this will get her that level of acclaim. I do believe she will do a good job of carrying the film and its potentially emotional scenes, hopefully enough that it will propel her toward other work that will get so recognized. After all, she's a better actress than her two female teammates in the X-Men movies, and both of them have Academy Awards.

If you're a horror fan who's even close to my age, then you probably have a geek-crush on filmmaker Eric Red -- and you might not even know it. Mr. Red made a big splash in the genre arena with The Hitcher in 1986, and his Near Dark (1987) would eventually go on to become a bona-fide cult classic -- even if it didn't exactly set the world on fire upon its original release. After those successes, the guy wrote and/or directed flicks like the little-seen Cohen and Tate (1989, Roy Scheider & Adam Baldwin), the intense Blue Steel (1990, Ron Silver & Jamie Lee Curtis), the semi-clever Body Parts (1991, Jeff Fahey & Kim Delaney), the really solid The Last Outlaw (1994, Mickey Rourke & Dermot Mulroney), the bizarre Undertow (1996, Lou Diamond Phillips & Mia Sara), the half-decent Bad Moon (1996, Michael Pare & Mariel Hemingway) -- and then ... nothing.

What happened to Eric Red? Well, part of it was a horrific car crash in 2000 in which two people were killed, the details of which can be found in this LA Times article. (The headline reads: "Horror filmmaker Eric Red crashed his Jeep, killing two. Then he slit his own throat. That was only the beginning." Yikes!) But now it looks like the guy is primed for a big-time comeback and, as The Arrow tells us, Eric Red's got a pretty nifty idea for a ghost story.

The 100 Feet plot goes like this: An abused wife kills her horrible husband, only he was a cop, and now his ex-partner is staking the widow out, desperately hoping she'll set off her ankle collar so he can cart her back to jail. So all she has to do is stay in the house, right? Well, yeah, but the evil ghost of her dead husband has other plans for his former Mrs.!! (I think it's a pretty cool concept, so there.) Mr. Red tells Mr. Arrow that "This is an elevated, old school and classical supernatural thriller that relies on suspense, character and suggestion," but he also promises a little gore, too. Cool. 100 Feet begins shooting in Hungary early next year.

Best known for the film Speed, Jan de Bont has signed on to direct another action-packed thrill-ride called Stopping Power. Pic will revolve around a single father on vacation with his daughter and girlfriend. When the RV they're traveling in gets hijacked, the father finds himself wrapped up in a high-speed police chase across town, forced to act as a decoy in the getaway car.

Damn, talk about a crappy situation: One minute you're enjoying some Wheat Thins in the back of your RV, and the next you're being chased by the cops, wanted for a crime you did not commit and your family is missing. Sure, it gets you out of cleaning the RV's septic (tank? pipe? bag?) for the day but, personally, I'd clean that bad boy with a toothpick if it meant I would avoid going to prison.

Du Bont is also behind such films as Twister, The Haunting and, most recently, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life. Richard Shepard (The Matador) will be doing the rewrite off an original script penned by Eric Red. No word yet on the casting front, though I'm sure you will hear the name Keanu Reeves tossed around quite a bit. However, I could see Paul Walker landing this kind of gig.

OK, the true-blue horror geeks can generally deal with it when you remake something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, because everyone knows that flick, but when it comes to titles like, say, Near Dark -- we tend to get pretty protective. (It's sorta like you and that one band you loved -- years before everyone else loved 'em.) Word out of all the different horror sites (well, the three I trust, anyway) is that not only will there be a new rendition of Kathryn Bigelow & Eric Red's brilliant cult classic Near Dark, but a screenwriter has already been hired for the gig.

The good news is that Matt Venne, the guy who just turned in his screenplay for White Noise 2, seems to have his head screwed on where Near Dark Redux is concerned. As quoted at Fango, Venne says "there are images in the original film and in Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow’s screenplay that are absolutely beautiful. Completely dreamy and captivating. Pure poetry. It’s an incredible project, and I’m honored to be writing it."

Near Dark, for those who haven't had the pleasure, is a blisteringly cool Southern-fried vampire noir from 1987 that was written by Eric (The Hitcher) Red and directed by Kathryn (Point Break) Bigelow. Although the flick features strong performances from Adrian Pasdar as one unlucky lad and Tim Thomerson as his devoted pop, the three blood-soaked standouts had just gotten done working together in Aliens. As a devilishly evil trio of bloodsuckers, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton are just perfect together. And yes, Netflix has it.