Two new cast members have been found for Rogue's remake of The Last House on the Left. Looks like it will be Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter. No word on who they'll be playing, but Potter will probably be playing "the mom," while Goldwyn will be either "the dad" or "a psycho." (And given that Goldwyn's best performance came as a hateful villain in Ghost, I'd vote for the latter -- but he's probably the dad.) According to Bloody-Dee, the remake will also star Garret Dillahunt, Rhys Coiro, Martha Maclsaac and Riki Lindholme. (And Dillahunt is fast becoming one of my favorite "new" character actors.)

Ms. Potter is also no stranger to the spooky stuff: Most people forget she was in the original Saw -- and she survived! (Sequel-makers, take note!) As far as the remake of the controversial 1972 horror flick is concerned, the director is newcomer Dennis Iliadis, and the screenplay adapters are first-timers Adam Alleca and Mark Haslett. According to Variety, Red Eye / Disturbia screenwriter Carl Ellsworth also had a hand in the script, most likely in a "polishing" capacity. The creators of the original flick -- Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham -- are involved collecting a paycheck as executive producers. Production gets underway in South Africa later this month.

We've heard a lot of murmurings about a Last House on the Left remake over the last few years, but it looks like the prolific producer Wes Craven has found his director. After handing his Hills remake over to a Frenchman newcomer (and tossing the table-scrap of a sequel to a German guy), Mr. Craven will allow an inexpensive Greek neophyte named Dennis Illiadis to direct the new version of Last House on the Left.

But perhaps Wes Craven has seen something in Mr. Illadis' work (a flick called Hardcore) that fills him with all sorts of confidence. Maybe he's sure this is the guy to re-invent the cult flick's patented brand of unflinching horror and brutal violence. Sure, that could be the case, except that Mr. Craven recently told Fangoria the following: "They are not DGA directors, so we don't have to make the films under DGA guidelines. Productions become more expensive when you have to add on assistant directors, 2nd assistant directors, etc." Well. How very ... pragmatic.

The Rogue (Universal) remake will begin shooting in South Africa in just a few weeks. One can only assume it's cheaper to film a one-location horror movie in South Africa than it is to shoot it in, say, Seattle. On the other hand, perhaps I'm being a whiny little jerk. If it weren't for Wes Craven, we'd have no Hills, no Freddy, and no Scream. (I'm talking about the first Scream, of course.) But as any horror fan can tell you, there's often a BIG difference between movies directed by Wes Craven -- and movies produced (or, ugh, "presented") by Wes Craven.

Production will begin next year on Last House on the Left, a remake of the 1972 Wes Craven film about some killers who break into the home of the parents of one of their victims. This is one that I'm curious about, only because the very notion that the remake will be as 'realistic' as the original -- a film infamous for its graphic rape and murder scenes -- is completely off the table. The MPAA will laugh in their faces. So what in the world is Wes Craven thinking? Yeah, he's totally behind this, producing the remake with Sean S. Cunningham under his Midnight Pictures label. The remake will be directed by a guy named Dennis Iliadis, who has little to no credits, to my knowledge. It will be written by a guy named Adam Alleca, who has little to no credits, to my knowledge. Was Aja unavailable to shepherd another Craven vehicle into the new millennium? Is he too busy trying to figure out that Piranha remake?

According to Variety, Craven wants the remake to "retain the spirit of the original ... but aim for a more realistic tone." What does that mean? Close-ups of penetration? Money shots? This just doesn't make sense to me on any level. The story also notes that scripter Alleca had previously approached Craven about remaking The People Under the Stairs, which is even more baffling. As for Sean S. Cunningham, I'd be interested in knowing if there's been any movement in the long talked-about plans to remake the first Friday the 13th film. Has anyone heard anything about that? Last time I checked, it was with Michael Bay's company.

Last year came a grimy, grungy and aggressively inept horror movie called Chaos, which began its existence as an official remake of Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, but shook itself free of that connection some time before release date. Despite the fact that Chaos is (in every way) a carbon copy of LHOTL, the filmmakers actually had the audacity balls to put an "original story" credit in their scroll. I'm guessing the only thing that kept Wes Craven out of a litigator's office was the realization that Chaos was so freakin' awful that he'd be better off never even bringing it up.

All of which makes this newly-announced "official" LHOTL remake seem kind of ... redundant. Then again, redundancy is what keeps the Horror Remake Machine well-oiled and churning merrily along, so perhaps it's a silly thing to whine over. For those who choose not to dabble in Cinema du Extra Harsh, Craven's Last House on the Left is about a pair of teenage girls who get beaten, molested, abused, tortured, raped and killed by a bunch of slovenly criminals -- and the parents who strike back with equal amounts of viciousness. (Suffice to say you won't be seeing a Disney version anytime soon.)

No word on who'll be writing, directing and/or starring in this new-fangled House, but Craven and his old-school producing partners (Marianne Maddalena and Sean S. Cunningham) are expected to earn Universal paychecks and opening-title credits without breaking much of a sweat. Also, Mr. Craven dropped a few hints regarding alleged remakes of both Shocker and The People Under the Stairs, which is news so arcane that my snark-meter just broke.

One would think that with a name like Wes Craven - his real name, by the way - that a life as a director of horror films would be the man's inescapable fate from the very start. While the 66-year-old Cleveland-born Renaissance man has created some of the most revered films of the modern genre like A Nightmare On Elm Street and the breakout Scream trilogy, there is more to him than that. He studied writing, psychology, philosophy and literature at Wheaton College and Johns Hopkins University, taught college, and did not even start working in the film industry until the age of 31 as a sound editor.

It was in 1971, though, when his path would intersect with that of another future horror legend - Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham. Their meeting first resulted in the largely forgotten Together, footnoted only because it starred a 19-year-old woman named Marilyn Briggs (who consequently met brothers Artie and Jim Mitchell, who rechristened her Marilyn Chambers and made her a porn icon in Behind The Green Door). However, the collaboration made fellow tyro Cunningham want to work with Craven again. The next year saw the release of the Cunningham-produced, Craven-directed The Last House On The Left, a remake of Swedish titan Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, believe it or not, a raw and grimy low-budget effort about a pair of murdering rapists who unknowingly hole-up in the house of the parents of one of their victims. The film became a cult favorite and launched Craven's career in movies.

Craven's second film, the savage and effective 1977 survival tale, The Hills Have Eyes, was about a family who, while traversing the desert, encounters a group of inbred maniacs who prey on these seemingly helpless castaways. Nearly three decades later comes the first remake of Craven's own work, with the new version helmed by French it-director Alexandre Aja (High Tension), released in the U.S. on March 10. Craven, who produced the film for Fox's boutique arm Fox Searchlight, was cool enough to call me at home for an impromptu chat. After I insulted his parentage and suggested a scenario in which he couple with a Cheerio (thinking I was being pranked by my friend Eric), I apologized and basked in fanboy glory for the remaining 22 minutes of our phoner.