Hallelujah. It’s been five long years since Jonathan Glazer’s last directorial effort (2004’s underappreciated psycho-drama “Birth”), and nine years since he made a movie anybody gave a shit about (that’d be 2000’s stylish gangster movie “Sexy Beast”), so it’s nice to hear he’s up to something new. Well, sort of.
It seems he’s been attached to an adaptation of Michael Faber’s darkly comic sci-fi novel “Under the Skin” for about a billion years now. We just found an article from Time Out London around the time of “Birth’s” release talking about how it would be his next film! However, “Under the Skin” seems like it’s close to actually shooting.
According to an announcement in Screen Daily, “Under the Skin” is one of a handful of projects being developed by Britain’s Film4. The article says that Jim Wilson and Nick Wechsler are producing the movie, and that it will shoot next year. Again: hallelujah!
The article quotes Katherine Butler, head of development at Film4, who describes the movie as “a groundbreaking story about aliens in Scotland looking for human prey.”
One wonders how dark the movie will end up and how complicated the visual effects will have to be to convey the bizarro plot of the novel, which concerns aliens who harvest humans for their yummy, yummy flesh. Please bear in mind that the book’s author is Michael Faber, who went on to give us the feel-good historical bodice ripper “The Crimson Petal and the White.” Very weird.
Still, if anyone can pull off bleakness with a satirical edge, it’s Glazer. Take a look at his wonderful “Director’s Label” DVD to see what the man can do in only a few short minutes with classic music videos like U.N.K.L.E. “Rabbit In Your Headlights” and Radiohead “Karma Police” – and then expand that to a heady, sci-fi horror yarn, and, well, it’s something to get very excited about. – Drew Taylor