Alfred Hitchcock's Most Terrifying Movie Is Officially Getting a HBO Remake

Just in time for Halloween, one of Alfred Hitchcock‘s most iconic horror movies is getting a remake, in the form of an HBO miniseries. What’s more, an Emmy-winner is attached to star in the series, which has been in development for years in various forms.

Despite Hitchcock’s reputation as the undisputed master of suspense, there have been occasional stabs at remaking his movies. Most infamous is Gus Van Sant‘s 1998 remake of Psycho, which was a complete shot-by-shot remake that critics dismissed as a feature-length experiment in pointlessness. More successful was A Perfect Murder, from that same year, which remade Dial M for Murder with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas; it doubled its budget at the box office. And, of course, Hitchcock wasn’t averse to remakes himself: he remade his own 1934 thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956; the critical consensus is that the remake is superior, with Hitchcock himself stating “…the first version is the work of a talented amateur and the second was made by a professional.”

Now, Deadline reports that The Birds is coming to HBO to roost. An adaptation of the 1952 short story by Daphne du Maurier, The Birds will star Succession Emmy-winner Sarah Snook as Myra Massey, a woman who returns to her Alaskan hometown with her young daughter to investigate an old friend’s disappearance. However, as she digs deeper into the mystery, she and the town are subject to mysterious, possibly supernatural attacks by the local bird population. Snook will executive produce the project with Tom Spezialy (The Leftovers) and David Heyman (Harry Potter).

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

What Is ‘The Birds’ About?

Set in the small coastal town of Bodega Bay, California, The Birds concerns socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren, Marnie), who travels there to get closer to lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor, The Time Machine). However, once she’s there, she’s subject to suspicion from the townspeople, including his overbearing mother (Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy) and his jealous ex (Suzanne Pleshette, The Bob Newhart Show). They only become more suspicious when the local birds begin to act more aggressively, and soon turn homicidal. The film’s script was by Evan Hunter, best known under the alias Ed McBain, author of the 87th Precinct crime novels. Although reviews were mixed upon its release, it is now considered one of the greatest horror films of all time.

The Birds is in development. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

The Birds