Oren Peli digs up Poe's Grave(s)

The director of Paranormal Activity will dump the found footage gimmick, but hopefully he'll remember to bring the scares with his next project.

Director Oren Peli has been tapped by Sobini Films and Icon Productions to direct Eliza Graves, a loose adaptation of a short story by the true master of horror, Edgar Allen Poe.

The film will focus on a young medical student who gets a job at an insane asylum, and soon learns that the whole institute has been taken over by the inmates. (hey, sort of like the United States after the midterm elections! I feel a metaphor coming on!) I don't know if that really counts as a spoiler, as it is laid right out there in the write-up Variety did for this story.

Anyway, the film's screenplay was written by Joe Gangemi, and both Ian McKellen and Natalie Portman have been attached to this film at various stages, though no casting has been confirmed at this time.

Peli's next project is the alien conspiracy thriller Area 51, and he also has producing credits on Paranormal Activity 2 and the upcoming Insidious, directed by James Wan, one of the men responsible for the Saw franchise. (which is a good or bad thing, depending on your level of tolerance for badly written torture porn films that have no redeeming qualities. Guess which one I'm leaning towards!)