Nicolas Winding Refn in talks to direct a haunted hotel movie

By Katie Rife  |  May 15, 2014 | 8:16pm
Aux Features Film

Although he has yet to make a pure horror movie, Drive and Only God Forgives director Nicolas Winding Refn is a huge fan of the genre who counts Videodrome and Vampyr among his favorite films. and was even once attached to a remake of Maniac Cop. So presumably, he’s just been waiting for the right project to come along—and he may have found it, after expressing his interest in an as-yet-unproduced script called The Bringing.

The Bringing, written by Brandon and Philip Murphy, has been making waves around Hollywood thanks to its connection to the case of Elisa Lam. Lam was a Canadian college student whose body was found in the water tank of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles in early 2013; surveillance footage of Lam behaving erratically the night she disappeared, along with the hotel’s dark history—which includes several suicides, and the dubious honor of housing serial killer Richard Ramirez—have since made Lam’s story an L.A. legend.

The Bringing takes place after the events surrounding Lam’s death, focusing on an investigator hired to inspect the hotel and the no doubt horrifying supernatural things he uncovers there. Talks are still in their early stages, but if Refn does sign on to direct, expect the most stylish elevator scenes this side of The Shining.

 
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