British Horror label Hammer is having a resurgence as it re-imagines some of its own material for new audiences. The 1957 The Abominable Snowman, about the pursuit of the legendary yeti in the Himalaya mountains, is the first of its properties to be remade.
The 2014 version of The Abominable Snowman will be from a script by Mathew Read (Pusher) and Jon Croker (Angel of Death). The original film starred Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing and Maureen Connell. The new version sees a team of scientists making an illegal climb up a no trespassing path that awakens an ancient sleeping monster whose home they are invading.
Hammer Film Productions, a prolific horror house from the mid 1930s through the mid 1970s, began its re-ascension into relevancy in 2010 with the adaptation of the Swedish vampire film Let Me In, starring Chloe Grace Moretz, then continued the rise in 2012 with Woman in Black, which featured one of Daniel Radcliffe’s first non-Harry Potter roles. The sequel, Angel of Death: Woman in Black, also penned by Jon Coker, is about a group of World War II orphans who accidentally awaken a beast haunting a long-abandoned home, and is on the slate for a 2014 release.
Hammer and Ben Holden, one of the producers on the Abominable remake, are also hard at work on The Quiet Ones, a supernatural thriller starring Mad Men’s Jared Harris. The Quiet Ones is being directed by John Pogue (The Skulls, U.S. Marshall’s) and was co-written by Pogue and Craig Rosenberg (The Uninvited). The film focuses on true events surrounding an unorthodox science teacher who convinces some of his brightest students to think outside the box while participating in a dangerous experiment. Their goal is to prove that paranormal activity is rooted in human negative thinking and behavior. The group uses that philosophy to create a demon poltergeist. Sam Clafin (Snowhite and the Huntsman, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Olivia Cooke (Bates Motel), Erin Richards (TV’s Being Human, and Rory Fleck-Byrne (Stealaway), also star.
The Quiet Ones is set for release April 25, 2014. Watch the trailer here: