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The 1980s horror film Spookies was a notoriously troubled production. Filming began in 1984 with Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran at the helm… but then creative and legal issues arose during post-production, so that version of the film (which was going by the title Twisted Souls) was never completed. Instead, an investor hired Eugenie Joseph to shoot new footage – involving a different cast and a lot more monsters – that was then mixed together with the footage left over from Faulkner and Doran. This mish-mash was released under the title Spookies in 1987, and over the decades it has developed a cult following. That’s why producer/co-writer Frank Farel is now moving ahead with the sequel Spookies II: Spookier, and he has told our friends at Bloody Disgusting that FX artists Gabriel Bartalos and Vincent J. Guastini, who worked on the first movie, are coming back for the follow-up!

The first Spookies (which,...

Following Bloody Disgusting’s exclusive scoop on a sequel to the 1987 cult classic Spookies earlier this year, writer-producer Frank Farel has provided us with a new update on the film.

Titled Spookies II: Spookier, an outline for the follow-up was first penned by Spookies writer-director-producer Thomas Doran.

“Despite its still relative obscurity and in the face of our major issues with the final cut-and-paste product, we realized that a sequel to our ’80s debacle, an existing movie, was likely to be our most direct path to getting a new project funded and made. Tom’s feelings on this ran hot and cold for years until he abruptly committed ideas to paper,” Farel explains.

“I eagerly read the 10 or so loosely organized pages, radically different in tone and scope — and loved them!

“Always a brilliant story man, Tom’s concept utilized elements of the original — all the horror prerequisites, of course — to springboard to a thoughtful,...

A sequel to Spookies is in the works, Bloody Disgusting has exclusively learned.

Frank Farel, co-writer and producer of the 1987 cult classic, announced the news during a live interview with The Barrens Hideout Podcast at Dark Arts Festival in Lincoln, Ri over the weekend.

“Remarkably, [Spookies] has done well enough in its revival that I’m at the start of raising financing for a sequel,” Farel revealed. “I’m hoping to get a couple of name horror actors into it. I’m also looking to make a film that is almost an anti-sequel. I don’t just want to rehash what was done the first time.

“I don’t want to even make a typical sequel. I want to make something that’s an animal of its own. It’s different in so many ways. The way I’m doing it, it’s almost intended as a mockery of what happened to our original film.