A24 has a horror film on the way from The First Omen director Arkasha Stevenson, and the internet has decided, more or less overnight, that it’s about vampires. The studio, true to form, isn’t saying a word.
What is confirmed is a cast to make most horror producers weep into their coffee. Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), Emma Corrin (Nosferatu), Sophie Wilde (Talk to Me) and Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms) are joined by Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), Caleb Landry Jones (Dracula), Whitmer Thomas (Weapons), Fabien Frankel (House of the Dragon), Suzanna Son, Emory Cohen and Katelyn Rose Downey. Stevenson directs from a script she wrote with Tim Smith, her co-writer on The First Omen, and Ari Aster is executive producing through his Square Peg banner.
The only official description is a single line: a bachelor party that spirals into terror. That’s the sum total of plot A24 has been willing to share since the cast started assembling late last year. A DiscussingFilm post this weekend describing it as a vampire film has racked up tens of thousands of views on X, but nothing from A24 or the filmmakers backs that up yet, so treat the fangs as speculative until somebody official bares them. Cameras rolled this spring, reportedly in Budapest and New Orleans, and Dread Central reported in April that filming had wrapped. There’s no title and no release date.
If the rumour does turn out to be true, there’s a nice irony in Emma Corrin and Caleb Landry Jones, both fresh from recent takes on Dracula, going round the crypt again. And a stag do is a natural habitat for the undead. It already involves a crowd of people up all night, drinking things they shouldn’t, in a European city they’ll struggle to remember.
The more interesting question is what Stevenson does with it. The First Omen was that rare beast, a horror prequel people actually liked: a 1970s-flavoured nunsploitation chiller that did far more than anyone expected with a franchise most of us had written off after the 2006 remake. It took around $54 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, and Mark Kermode was a fan (we covered his review here). With Aster’s company in the producer’s chair and A24’s marketing department observing its customary vow of silence, expect something stranger than a straight bloodsucker romp, whatever the creature count turns out to be.
Bachelor parties have been a reliable source of cinematic terror since The Hangover. This one sounds as though it may come with an actual body count.
Join the conversation (0)