Chilean filmmaker Patricio Valladares is set to bring a decidedly darker vision to Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem, taking on a horror-infused adaptation of Inferno for his next feature. The project, confirmed exclusively to USA Film News, marks a major departure from the director’s previous genre work, plunging viewers into the nine circles of Hell with a visceral, contemporary lens.
Valladares, known for his resourceful approach to low-budget horror and action films like The Blackout and Nightworld, describes this new undertaking as a passion project several years in the making. Rather than a academic or literary retelling, his Inferno will lean heavily into the grotesque, the psychological, and the relentlessly physical, treating Dante’s journey through the underworld as a survival horror odyssey. He frames the adaptation not as a museum piece but as a descent into a waking nightmare, where the allegorical punishments for sin are rendered in stark, bloody, and often claustrophobic detail.
“I never wanted to make a film where people are just reciting poetry while walking through sets,” Valladares said in a statement to USA Film News. “For me, Hell is a state of being. We’re approaching the material with the raw energy of a grindhouse film but the visual ambition of a big-budget spectacle. The audience should feel the heat, the suffocation, and the absolute dread of every step downward.”
The director has assembled a team of practical-effects specialists and cinematographers known for their work in atmospheric horror to achieve a grounded, tactile look. Early concept work reportedly emphasizes decaying architecture, flesh-and-bone landscapes, and a color palette that shifts from ashen gray to fiery crimson as the protagonist descends. While casting has not yet been announced, Valladares has indicated he wants a physically demanding lead, an actor willing to endure harsh conditions to convey the exhaustion and terror of the journey.
This new Inferno should not be confused with the 2016 Ron Howard thriller of the same name. That production, starring Tom Hanks as symbologist Robert Langdon, adapted Dan Brown’s novel and involved a race against time to stop a global biological catastrophe. The Howard film, released on October 13, 2016, with a 122-minute runtime, leaned on mystery and action, earning a modest 6.1/10 rating on TMDb. Valladares’s version shares only the source material’s title and its thematic root in Dante’s poem; his take has no connection to Langdon, Harvard professors, or the modern-day conspiracy plots of Brown’s franchise.
For Valladares, the appeal of Inferno lies in its adaptability. The poem’s structure - a guided tour through a meticulously ordered Hell - lends itself naturally to a series of escalating set pieces, each circle presenting a new environment, a new cast of tormented souls, and a new form of horror. He plans to treat each circle as its own distinct nightmare, with varying tones of dread, from the melancholic limbo of the first circle to the treacherous, ice-bound ninth. This episodic structure, he argues, keeps the narrative taut and the audience perpetually disoriented.
The production is expected to begin filming in early 2027. Valladares has scouted locations in Eastern Europe, favoring abandoned industrial sites and natural caverns that can be transformed through digital enhancement into the immense, impossible geography of the underworld. Shooting entirely on location, even for a supernatural story, is a hallmark of his process; he believes that real shadow and real grime convey a sense of menace that clean digital sets cannot replicate.
One of the biggest challenges, the director admits, is balancing fidelity to the poem’s iconic imagery - the river Styx, the Minotaur, the three-headed Cerberus - with the need for fresh, cinematic surprises. He wants to honor the art of Botticelli and Gustave Doré, whom he cites as visual touchstones, while also subverting expectations. “Everyone has an image of what Hell looks like. I want to give them that image, but then twist it just enough to make them uncomfortable,” he said.
The film is currently being packaged for international sales, with Valladares’s frequent producing partners attached alongside a yet-unnamed genre-focused distributor. The director is confident that horror audiences, increasingly hungry for ambitious and cerebral fare, will embrace the film’s mix of philosophical dread and visceral scares. He also sees a broader appeal: for those unfamiliar with Dante, the film will function as a standalone horror thriller; for lit students and classics enthusiasts, it’s a bold reimagining that takes the source material seriously without being precious about it.
With pre-production underway, Valladares is now in the throes of finalizing the screenplay and casting. He hopes to announce lead actors in the coming months. For now, he’s focused on building the infrastructure of Hell, both practically and visually, so that when cameras roll, the descent will feel immediate and inescapable. “This is not a metaphor,” he insists. “This is a horror movie about going to Hell. I want people to leave the theater feeling like they went through the wringer.” The project is slated for a late 2027 or early 2028 release, depending on post-production demands.
Source: Variety
