As a gamer, I’ve pretty much given up hope that a truly great game-to-film adaptation will ever happen. We’ve had winks of cult greatness (Mortal Kombat), franchise-unfaithful lunacy (Resident Evil), and hollow renditions that got the look but missed the point (Silent Hill), but never the sort of software-to-cinema translations that we all truly long for.
There’s a tiny glimmer of hope, however, as a recent interview with Game Informer (and handily cited by Videogamer) revealed that master of horror John Carpenter would love to tackle adapting EA’s Dead Space to celluloid. Here’s what Carpenter had to say:
"I maintain that Dead Space would just make a great movie because you have these people coming onto an abandoned, shut-down space ship and they have to start it up and something's on board. It's just great stuff.
"I would love to make Dead Space [into a film], I'll tell you that right now. That one is ready-made."
A Dead Space movie wouldn’t be Carpenter’s first foray into gaming: he had a directorial hand in F.E.A.R. 3, helping to give the game an extra dose of horror in spite of its multiplayer-oriented gameplay.
As exciting as the prospect of a seasoned horror vet like Carpenter directing Dead Space could be, I would sign him on with one major stipulation: that he also handles the soundtrack. Carpenter returning to The Thing-style bio-horror with his trademark synth score? That’s the stuff dreams are made of, folks.