By Alyse Wax

Breck Eisner seems poised to become the next superstar genre director. Having already crafted a great deal of sci-fi television (including episodes of Taken and The Invisible Man), Eisner is now turning his lens to full-out horror. The director just wrapped an episode of NBC?s upcoming horror anthology Fear Itself, and he's gearing up for remakes of two horror classics: the black-and-white 50s monster mash The Creature from the Black Lagoon and George Romero?s cult flick The Crazies. Here Eisner gives us a sneak peek at these two films before they enter production.

How are you going to update The Creature from the Black Lagoon?

Obviously, it is updated in execution. It takes place today. The original takes place in the day in which it was made, so we are setting it in the day in which it takes place as well. It?s going to be shot in the Amazon, on the Amazon itself, not at the Universal back lot. I don?t know how well you know the movie, but when they first arrive in the lagoon?which was shot at Falls Lake at Universal?you can see, clear as day in the background, a telephone pole. Back in the day, in 1953, it was a different movie-going audience. Back then, I?m sure the pole wasn?t even noticed.

For me, I want it to be authentic. I?m a big fan of Werner Herzog and Fitzcarraldo, and this kind of authenticity, going to the real place. He shot in Iquitos [Peru]; he shot in Manaus [Brazil]. So we scouted for a month in the Amazon. We scouted Iquitos and Manaus. I flew into the forest called ?The River of Mirrors.? There are so many small lagoons over a thousand miles. We found the actual lagoon we are going to use as the plate. It?s this one lagoon, and just a sea of green forest. We found these amazing locations, so, rather than doing the whole thing CG, with green screen and fake backgrounds, we?re really going to go and shoot there. We will shoot the interiors here [in Los Angeles] on a stage, and all the exteriors there [on the Amazon].

Will the creature be CG?

We are still debating that. Obviously there will be a CG element to it. There will obviously be a practical element to it. So my guess is it will be both. The creature has been designed, I have the maquette. We spent six months designing it. Crash did the design and Spectral Motion did the maquette. We went to the top shelf on it. It is very faithful to the original, but updated for today?s audience.

Where does this fall in line with The Crazies?

Crazies I?m going to try to do before. We are going to shoot up in Winnipeg, Canada and we are going to shoot that this summer. I?m waiting for the [Amazon] river. The river is at its lowest in October and November. So I want to get The Crazies done, post it, then go to the Amazon. We?ve got all the locations, the boat, the set? everything is ready to go.

Is Romero at all involved in The Crazies remake?

He?s definitely involved. He?s not involved on a day-to-day basis, but he?s a producer on the movie. He knows what we are doing, we are in contact with him all the time. We are being very faithful to the original, although it has a lot of room to be updated.

Can you tell me how The Crazies still resonates today?

I think it resonates more today. The original has an anti-war slant to it, in the aftermath of Korea and Vietnam. We are clearly in a similar situation now. In Romero?s version, the military is a stronger presence than we are going to have. For me, the military is there and present, but in the shadows. The Crazies is about a water supply being poisoned because of a military mistake. It?s the same story. Like any good horror movie, it is a paradigm for what is really going on in the world. For us, it?s the same themes, the same ideas? the military just has a little less presence. A little less heavy-handed, but more dangerous. In the finale, their means for containing [the outbreak] are pretty extreme. I won?t say what they are, but it is ?at all costs.? In a way, the military exists on two levels. It exists as ?the machine? you see, a column of tanks, or a mass of soldiers, and then it exists as the individual soldiers. The individual soldiers are different than the mass, and I wanted to explore seeing it as the mass, as well as what an individual might look like, who is not at all responsible for the actions of the military or the government, but is caught in the middle of it.

Are you still telling it from the point of view of firefighters? Guys who are ?officials??

I?m still telling the story from ?officials??it is the sheriff who is telling it.

In terms of The Crazies' approach, are you still going to go with them being complete loopy and sexually perverse?

Yeah definitely. I mean, they are Crazies! They are out there. But they?re not zombies. The biggest challenge has been to make it clear it?s not a zombie movie. That?s what is so great about the original. They don?t all have a cohesive, coherent action. Everyone reacts differently. In our version, there is a kid who just stands there, punching a wall, just punching his fist into a bloody pulp. It unlocks the deepest psychosis. Some of it is violent, some of it is sexual, some of it is self-inflicted violence. It?s meant to be different for everybody.

The scariest movie I ever saw as a kid was Carpenter?s The Thing; and the idea of not knowing who you can trust? Your best buddy, the guy who has always stuck by you, is suddenly an alien. It?s a similar concept here. You don?t know if you can trust your wife?can you trust your mother, can you trust your brother? I think that?s a really good, deep-seeded fear for a horror movie to play with.

Will it make any difference [to the movie] if the Iraq war is solved by then?

[Laughs.] The Iraq war is never going to be solved! The tragedy of what has happened cannot be erased. It will get mediated somehow, but the pain that the country has gone through will never disappear. Just like the pain from Vietnam?it?s still a fresh wound. So I think that the social resonance of the war will never disappear. But of course, that is undercurrent. We are making a movie that should be enjoyable and scary, and have a meaning, but not be an overt critique of the war. It?s subtext.

How is Universal handling it?

They?re being great. They are not going to make a movie that is a direct attack on the military. I don?t think it?s what the audience wants to see. But like I said, any good horror movie has to have deeper meanings, and I think that is the subtext of it.