What would a horror movie from Wes Anderson look like? The closest the filmmaker has ever gotten to the genre is, arguably, scenes like Willem Dafoe offing Jeff Goldblum’s cat in The Grand Budapest Hotel. As it turns out, the director has thought about dipping his toe more deeply the icy waters of the genre. In fact, he also thought about adding a Christmas movie to his movie bucket list.
According to Filmmaker Magazine, Anderson revealed this morsel during a conversation at the Rome Film Festival with author Donna Tartt. He said:
I have thought of doing a horror movie, and I have thought of doing a Christmas movie. Horror is an area where if a filmmaker really wants to use all the tricks, the techniques to affect your emotions…. With the kind of movies I do, you’re supposed to say is this part supposed to be funny, or is this part supposed to be sad? Well, you say, I don’t know. I’m not sure. This is the way we wanted it. When you make a horror or a thriller, you say you’re supposed to be scared here. You’re supposed to be relieved here. Here we’re explaining something so you know the next part so you’ll be more scared then. I like the idea of the requirements and the obligations of working in a genre like that. I’ve done some scenes like that, but I’d like to do a scary movie.
With specific regards to a Christmas movie, he said,
The good thing with a Christmas movie — if you make a great Christmas song or movie or book, as Dickens showed us, you can make a huge fortune, because they come back every year. As long as you have a piece of the action, then it’s a perennial.
If Anderson ever decides to go through with either, it probably won’t be for a while. He recently announced his next project will be a return to stop-motion animation with a story about dogs that features the voice talents of Goldblum, Edward Norton, Bryan Cranston, and Bob Balaban.
However, thanks to the magic of SNL, we already have an idea — if only a very warped, comical idea — of what an Anderson horror movie would entail. The late-night sketch comedy series parodied the filmmaker’s signature styling in a “New Horror Trailer” for The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders. Of course, Norton and fellow Andersonian Owen Wilson play parts.
As for a potential Anderson Christmas movie, we’ll have to re-watch the ice cream parlor scene from The Royal Tenenbaums; as Indiewire points out, it plays “Christmas Time Is Here” from A Charlie Brown Christmas in the background.
