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To an old-school horror fanatic, this is pretty big news. To the rest of you, it's a bunch of babble with the word "cannibals" tossed in near the end. But remember a few weeks back when we talked about how Jack Ketchum's Offspring was about to become a movie, despite the fact that the novel was actually Part 2 to a novel called Off Season? I not-so-cleverly assumed that the rights to Off Season belonged to someone else, and also that Offspring could easily stand as a non-sequel story.

Apparently those Off Season rights did reside elsewhere, because Shock announces that not only is Off Season going to become a movie, but also that Eric Red will be directing it. Genre fans will know Mr. Red's name from films like The Hitcher, Near Dark, Body Parts, Bad Moon, and the upcoming 100 Feet, but apparently he and Jack are old pals, so the project makes sense to me. (No word on if / how the Offspring movie will relate to the Off Season film, but who knows when the flicks will even be finished?)

Off Season still ranks as my favorite among Mr. Ketchum's books. It's a full-bore survival horror tale that was inspired by "the Sawney Bean legend and horror/siege flicks such as The Hills Have Eyes and Assault on Precinct 13." And yes, it deals with cannibals. We'll assume that Red will also be on adaptation duty, but it's probably a little too early in the process to worry about such things. In the meantime, go read Off Season. And then Offspring.

UPDATE: Screenwriter Nick Koff dropped us an email to let us know that, yep, it's his adaptation that Red will be directing. More info is available at Bloody-Disgusting.com.

(NOTE: I hate that the anonymity afforded to us on the internet allows certain people to become ugly, hate-filled trolls, but it does happen from time to time. As such, I've closed the comments on this thread.)

When someone who's read hundreds of horror novels says something like "Jack Ketchum is one of the best authors out there," you might want to bring up a few titles on Amazon and maybe snag a tome or two. (That's if you're looking for horror fiction in the first place, obviously.) Over the last few years, we've (finally!) seen several of the author's works transformed into indie flicks, and I'd say those filmmakers are presently three-for-three! (Those films would be The Lost, The Girl Next Door, and Red.)

So it's with no small amount of nerdly excitement that I read the following over at Dread Central: Looks like the guys behind the harrowing Girl Next Door are about to tackle Offspring, a 1991 Ketchum "crazy cannibal" novel that is actually the follow-up to the truly disturbing Off Season. (And I mean "disturbing" as a compliment.) But why would producer Andrew van den Houten start with Part 2 instead of Part 1? I assume it has something to do with rights issues -- as in "someone else probably owns the rights to Part 1" -- but Shock's Ryan Rotten very astutely makes the same point that I was going to make: That if someone did Off Season straight from the book, it'd look a whole LOT like Wrong Turn or yet another rendition of The Hills Have Eyes. Kind of a shame, really, but you can always read the book.

For more on the brutally memorable work of Jack Ketchum, check out his official site right here.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, being a lifelong fan of horror cinema & fiction, but I only just recently discovered the dark awesomeness of Mr. Jack Ketchum. While strolling through a massive discount store that won't stock NC-17 movies, I noticed the "uncut, uncensored, unexpurgated" version of Mr. Ketchum's debut novel, Off Season, sitting on a shelf next to Cosmo. I bought the book, read it in four days, and then thought it was deliciously ironic that such an stunningly disturbing novel would be sold at the same store that won't carry Requiem for a Dream.

I'm rambling.

No, there's not a movie of Off Season on the way, but Ketchum fans assure me that the author's The Girl Next Door is just as good as Off Season ... if not better. And that's the book that someone's making into a movie. That "someone" will be Gregory Wilson, sophomore-stage director whose first flick was the little-seen Home Invaders. Mae Whitman (Ann Veal from Arrested Development) and Blanche Baker (the drugged-out bride from Sixteen Candles) are among the cast members.

I'd be happy to give you a plot recap on The Girl Next Door ... but that's the next Ketchum book I'll be buying, and I don't want the thing spoiled for me. (In other Ketchum-related news, the movie version of his The Lost has been bouncing around the festival circuit, but has thus far eluded my own eyeballs.)

And as far as Off Season goes... Yowch. I doubt anyone could make it into a movie without gutting the thing.