Concept: a man’s family is brutally killed in a gang initiation (I am assuming his family was not, in fact, becoming members of the Black Gangster Disciples, but rather were innocents). The man then hunts down the gang members and inflicts the death penalty on them one by one. That’s the concept of Death Penalty, a novel which is becoming a new movie, and I was going to make a joke about how it’s essentially Death Wish. But get this – the same guy who wrote Death Penalty wrote the original Death Wish novel. Suddenly my joke about lack of originality becomes sadness that Brian Garfield apparently wrote the same book over and over. Suddenly the sadness became envy when I realized that Garfield probably made more money rewriting the same book than I’ll ever make working legitimately.
James Wan, the man who so ably shot Danny Glover in a shaking, stationary car in the original Saw, will be directing this film. Actually, come to think of it, I think this was basically also a Tales from the Crypt story that got adapted in the first season of the HBO series. I guess this bodes well for my continued ability to think that Wan sucks as a filmmaker – it’s so tiring having ones’ expectations exceeded. I’m looking at you, Eli Roth.