Cruella’s serial killer relative and other details for Disney’s prequel

It’s Villain Week here at Mashable. In honor of the release of Venom, we’re celebrating all our favorite evildoers from film and TV all week long. Spooky, scary!

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Believe it or not, 101 Dalmatians can get way darker than puppy murder—a disturbing fact that might make Disney’s upcoming prequel even better than expected. 

In January 2016, the first rumors of Emma Stone starring in Disney’s Cruella De Vil origin story hit The Hollywood Reporter. And the internet went barking mad. 

Black and white fan art plastered Tumblr. Dozens of tweets predicted what fresh hell the fur-wearing witch would raise. And Disney lovers across the board eagerly awaited hitting “purchase” on Fandango. 

Then things got… quiet. Following Stone’s commitment to the role, director Alex Timbers signed on to helm the project. But plans for a 2017 theatrical release soon came and went. Early 2018 brought new rumors of a 1970s punk rock setting, but confirmed nothing. And, since then, news on the production has been non-existent. 

Left chomping at the bit, Cruella fanatics have been digging for clues as to where the prequel might take Disney’s most fashionably foul villain. Luckily, Dodie Smith—the original author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians, published in 1956—is here to throw us a bone. 

Check out everything Smith’s dark novel can tell us about the OG Cruella (and the inspiration she could provide for Emma Stone’s looming portrayal) below. 

Cruella is related to a serial killer 

Here’s a fact the original Disney animated children’s film wisely left out. According to Smith’s telling, Hell Hall, the large Suffolk manor where the puppies are kept after being kidnapped, has always been property of the De Vil family. It was originally owned by a man believed by villagers to be a serial killer. 

Loosely implied to be Cruella’s grandfather, the fearsome ancestor terrified locals who heard screaming coming from his home late at night and “began to count their children.” It’s explained that the town believed this man captured victims whom he would later torture and kill at Hell Hall. Cruella reclaims the house at the time of the events in 101 Dalmatians. 

Or she might be a descendant of the devil

What’s worse than having a mass murderer for a grandpa? Well, him being an actual demon might do the trick. 

Villagers in the novel also claimed the De Vil ancestor had a tail and supernatural powers. When they came to Hell Hall to confront the supposed murderer and burn down his farm house, a “terrific thunderstorm” came out of nowhere and extinguished their torches. Then, the man emerged from the home with bolts of “blue forked lightning” coming from his body. The villagers ran away terrified and the alleged demon was never seen again. 

Admittedly, these rumored murders and supposed demonic qualities were reported by an Old English Sheepdog. But “The Colonel” is canonically trustworthy. So, if anyone would know, it’s him.

Image: walt disney productions

Cruella has a creepy relationship with fire (and weirdly, pepper)

The demon ancestry makes even more sense in the context of Cruella’s other quirks in the novel. Throughout the story, Cruella—wearing her “absolutely simple white mink coat”—is constantly cold. She insists on stoking fires in her home round the clock and demonically stares into the flames of a bakery fire at one point. 

She also puts an unreal amount of pepper on everything she eats, including some unidentifiable meat she serves the Dearlys. It makes everything so spicy that one of the puppies, Lucky, says she “tasted hot” when he bit her. Talk about ruff rough.  

And a history of murdering kittens 

44 of them to be exact. Yeah, not awesome for cat lovers.

In the novel, Cruella has a white Persian cat she keeps for its value, but generally seems to abuse. Specifically, Cruella boasts that each time the cat gets pregnant, she drowns her kittens one by one.  Her kitten body count rounds out at 44. (It’s times like this I’m happy my cat can’t read. Or open laptops.)

Thankfully, the Dearlys adopt the cat at the novel’s end and promise to find her a husband. So there is some reprieve from this horror, but it takes a minute.

She considered having the puppies cannibalize each other

This is 100% true and 100% horrifying. When Cruella decides to kill off the puppies earlier than anticipated, her henchmen are unsure how to approach the task. So she suggests locking them in a room without food so they would be forced to eat each other. Eat each other.

Why doesn’t she go through with this heinous plan, you might ask? Because it would take too long. Good lord, someone put on Airbud. I am not okay.

Image: Disney enterprises

Turns out, Cruella has always been this way

According to Anita Dearly, Cruella has always been this atrocious. The two went to school together, but were hardly friends considering Anita describes being terrified of her. Their acquaintance was ultimately cut short by Cruella’s expulsion. She was caught drinking ink. Gag.

Oh, and that hair? Always been that way too. In primary school, De Vil had two braided pigtails: one black and one white. Sounds like a look Wednesday Addams would have loved.

And her husband is fine with it!

Yep, this woman is married. Mr. De Vil—he took her last name and the novel doesn’t include his first—is a furrier, naturally. Building Cruella a fur empire, he speaks very little and seems to obey her every command. The novel likens him to her abused white cat.

At the story’s end, when the two are run out of town, Mr. De Vil is forced to go into the production of raincoats. It’s a fitting punishment, but, personally, I prefer the fashion business of Glenn Closes’s Cruella. I mean, come on: those outfits! 

There is an unlikely (but awesome) R-rated movie here

Unlike Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent, Dodie Smith’s Cruella is totally irredeemable. And that might explain why the planned Disney prequel is taking so long to make. Seriously, how do you make a puppy murderer sympathetic?

That being said, if Disney was willing to take the plunge on creating an adult Cruella, using these horrifying origin details and Emma Stone’s acting prowess to build a truly evil presence, we could be in for a horrifying treat. 

Sure, this is extremely unlikely. (Let’s recall, they even changed the PG-13ish material of Into the Woods.) 

But with 50 Shades of Grey screenwriter Kelly Marcel already on board, who knows? We could soon be seeing spots in a whole new light.