Blumhouse is remaking Vincent Must Die, a French horror that only came out three years ago
Hollywood has an official remake on the way for a 2023 French horror gem — but which chiller’s getting the call-up?
Time for another horror remake, and this one comes with a twist. If you thought the so-called "infected" genre peaked with 28 Days Later, think again—the Americans are having another go, this time with a French film that barely had time to cool on the shelf.
Released just three years ago, Vincent Must Die is already getting the Hollywood rework treatment.
The original Vincent Must Die landed in 2023, directed by Stéphan Castang and quickly racked up a healthy 93% on Rotten Tomatoes—a rare feat for something this unapologetically bleak. The setup: the world’s gone quietly and spectacularly mad, only here it’s not some lab-engineered virus or hand-wringing over the undead coming for your brains. Instead, you look someone in the eye and suddenly they’re overtaken by an urge to murder you on the spot. Vincent, the hapless bloke in question, becomes a sort of modern-day hermit, running for his life and trying not to make eye contact with anyone—until he finally bumps into someone who seems immune. No one bothers explaining why this is happening (refreshing, if you’re bored stiff by endless pseudoscience in your horror).
Hollywood Sinks Its Teeth In
On the back of solid critical buzz and that ambiguous ending everyone’s still on about, three major production companies—AR Content, Vertigo, and Blumhouse Atomic Monster—are now taking a swing at an American remake. The man running the show is David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, a name you might know if you've been keeping track of horror on both TV and cinema. He’s done time on Orphan, The Conjuring: Last Rites, and Insidious: Out of the Further, plus he wrote a chunk (14 episodes, actually) of The Walking Dead. This will be his first outing as a director, which is an odd bit of trivia considering how long he’s been behind the scenes in this genre.
Read more: Zach Cregger is making Resident Evil once, and then never touching a franchise again
- David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick’s directorial debut (after years as a screenwriter and producer)
- Remake from three heavy-hitting production companies: AR Content, Vertigo, and Blumhouse Atomic Monster
- Original film is French, released 2023, and left intentionally unexplained and unsettling
Details on Johnson-McGoldrick's remake are being kept quiet for now—it’s anyone’s guess whether they keep the French film’s elliptical approach or go full Hollywood with explanations and big set pieces. That said, considering Johnson-McGoldrick has gone on record as a fan of the original, it’s probably safe to expect something at least a bit faithful.
No Zombies, Just Mayhem
It’s a tidy reminder that not all “zombie” films look to Romero’s Night of the Living Dead as their bible. In fact, Vincent Must Die leans much closer in spirit to Romero’s other work, namely The Crazies (or Code Name: Trixie, if you’re a stickler). That was the one about a town driven to homicidal mania by a military mishap, long before society was arguing about fast versus slow zombies. "The Crazies" got its own American remake back in 2010, so there’s a certain symmetry here.
As trends go, we’re a long way from Romero’s slow, shuffling ghouls. Infected-rage flicks like World War Z, I Am Legend, Train to Busan, and The Girl with All the Gifts owe more than a little to this evolution. And on the weird end of the spectrum, you’ve got entrants like Dead Snow, Dead Alive, Night of the Comet, and One Cut of the Dead. If you want to draw the line even further, you could throw in video games like The Last of Us, Left 4 Dead, and Resident Evil (which itself is heading for another adaptation, with Zach Cregger reportedly at the helm this time around).