Benighted was formed in Saint-Étienne, Rhône-Alpes, France, in May 1998 by vocalist Julien Truchan, guitarists Liem N'Guyen and Olivier Gabriel, drummer Fred Fayolle and bassist Chart.
It has subsequently been purchased by Warner Brothers for an undisclosed six-figure sum, and is currently being adapted as a film called Benighted by director Andrew Adamson.
Alternatively he exploited instances where living writers no longer held the rights to his work, an example being the J.B. Priestley novel Benighted, which was the basis for The Old Dark House (1932); James Whale's horror film for Universal (which had been thought lost for some years) thus passed to Rohauer.