Wes Craven's New Villain Revealed

With all the recent talk about Scream 4, Wes Craven's actual current project, the just completed My Soul to Take (which started life as 25/8) has been a bit forgotten. But thanks to stuntman Manny Siverio's MySpace page, we now know what to expect from the next killer in the Craven pantheon.

Frankly, he looks a bit like Rob Zombie's Hellbilly persona, which means he also looks kinda like the hobo Michael Myers from Halloween 2. Maybe it's postmodern. This is Craven after all, directing his first self-written original screenplay since 1994's New Nightmare.

Hellbilly (he's not yet been officially named, to the extent that we're not sure who the actor is - is it stuntman Christopher Place, cast as "Ripper"?) is a serial killer, who may or may not still be alive after his reign of terror ended. Sixteen years on, he's back to terminate the seven children born on the night of his "death". Earlier this year Craven described him as "a figure who sleeps under bridges and deep in the woods and eats bark".

Let's hope he's more of a Freddy Krueger or a Papa Jupe than a Horace PInker. My Soul to Take stars Max Thieriot (replacing Henry Lee Hopper, who was taken ill), John Magaro, Paulina Olszynski, Nick Lashaway and Emily Meade: all relative unknowns, conforming to Craven's technique of casting unfamiliar faces so you can't guess who'll still be alive at the end.

No release date yet, but expect this earlier rather than later next year.

/Empire Online/