Another week, another grip of horror news about Simon Barrett’s new film, a new sequel to a 90’s slasher classic, and one of the best trailers I’ve seen in a while! Check it all out, and more, in The Week in Horror!
The news that everyone was talking about this week was that 17-year-old Kane Parsons, who created the YouTube horror short sensation The Backrooms will be spending his summer break making his haunting found-footage project into a feature film for A24 and James Wan’s Atomic Monster.
The Backrooms is set in the 1990’s in a seemingly-nondescript series of office spaces which form a kind of otherworldly labyrinth. There’s more to it than that, but you’ll have to delve into the shorts to find out.
In a new film from Blumhouse called Imaginary, “a young woman returns to her childhood home only to discover that the imaginary friend she left behind is very real and very unhappy she left. ” The film is directed by Jeff Wadlow, and is currently in the casting stage with an eye towards kicking off production this spring, according to Deadline.
Fans of 90’s slashers and Freddie Prinze Jr will be happy to know that an I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel is cooking over at Sony. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is set to direct from a script by Leah McKendrick, and Jennifer Love Hewitt and Prinze Jr. are in talks to return. The original slasher about a hook-wielding killer who stalks some very pretty teens in a seaside town hit theatres in 1997 and spawned two sequels in 1998 and 2006. This series was always a little bit mid, but Robinson recently directed Do Revenge which in my humble opinion was underrated so I’m willing to give this a shot. Word is that this won’t be a reboot but a true sequel which aims to pass the torch to a new cast, likely to play on the success of the formula in Creed and Scream.
Maika Monroe has signed on to Osgood Perkins (Gretel and Hansel, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House) new project, called Longlegs, according to Variety. She’ll join Nic Cage in the film which is said to be a Hollywood-based psychological thriller.
In Longlegs, “FBI Agent Lee Harker (Monroe) is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer (Cage). As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.”
We’ve got the first image of Samara Weaving in Simon Barrett’s new one, Azrael, which is currently in post-production. E.L Katz (The Haunting of Bly Manor) directs from Barrett’s script, which is “set in a world in which no one speaks and follows a devout female-led community which hunts down a young woman who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael (Weaving) is due to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil deep within the surrounding wilderness – but she has other ideas.” Check out the image here!
Director Jeff A. Brown (The Beach House) has a new one called The Unheard which is heading to Shudder on March 31. The thriller from writers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen of Crawl fame, stars Lachlan Watson, Nick Sandow, and Brendan Meyer. The film is about a woman who undergoes an experimental hearing-restoration procedure and begins to experience aural hallucinations.
In what should make a fun double-feature with The Unheard, Blumhouse’s Unseen hits VOD on March 7, and we have a brand-new trailer for you. The film’s directed by Yoko Okumura from a script by Salvatore Cardoni and Brian Rawlins. In Unseen, “two women form an unlikely connection when a depressed gas station clerk Sam, receives a call from Emily, a nearly blind woman who is running from her murderous ex in the woods. Emily must survive the ordeal with Sam being her eyes from afar using video call.” Unseen stars Midori Francis, Jolene Purdy, Missi Pyle, and Michael Patrick Lane. Check out the trailer here ahead of the film’s release!
Finally, my favourite trailer this week is the teaser for Donald Glover’s new series for Amazon, Swarm. The series hits Prime on March 17 and was co-created by Glover and Atlanta writer Janine Nabers. Dominique Fishback stars as Dre, “a young woman whose obsession with a pop star takes a dark turn.” It seems like it’s riffing on the superfans of Beyonce, called the “B-hive.” The series will have a premiere at SXSW on March 10 ahead of its streaming debut. Check out this teaser right now!
