Exclusives
The Dowdle Brothers ‘Afraid’ of Horrible Sci-fi Apocalypse
Update: Correction, Drew Dowdle will be producing. Bloody Disgusting learned exclusively that John Dowdle is attached to direct Afraid, an adaptation of Jack Kilborn’s novel being penned by Larry Malkin & Chad Thumann. his brother Drew will be producing. Here’s the inside skinny: “After a helicopter crash unleashes a rogue Red-Ops unit on Safe Haven, Wisconsin, its residents must band together to defend themselves against these brutal “trans-human” killers.” This is slated to be a franchise in the vein of Terminator and Aliens. Vincent Newman and Josh Kesselman are producing. The Dowdle brothers are in post-production on Devil, the M. Night Shyamalan thriller, for Universal. They broke on to the scene with The Poughkeepsie Tapes, which is stuck in limbo at MGM.
A gnarly infection threatens to claw its way out of a moving camper in the first trailer for Shudder’s claustrophobic Hellcat.
The feature debut of writer/editor/director Brock Bodell, who previously edited the Fantasia title Ultrasound, makes its debut on Shudder on August 14.
In Hellcat, “Lena wakes up in a moving camper trailer with a horrifying wound. She’s warned by the driver that they have one hour to get to a doctor, or she’ll succumb to an unimaginably awful fate. As the pain sets in and reality begins to fray, who should really be afraid?”
Dakota Gorman (Natural Disasters) leads the cast that also includes Todd Terry (“Breaking Bad”), Liz Atwater (The Other People), Jordan Mullins (The Bikeriders), and James Austin Johnson (“Saturday Night Live”) in a voice role. Bodell also produces alongside Andrew Duensing and Nate Eggert.
Hellcat made its world premiere last summer at Fantasia. I wrote in my review, “Hellcat is a bit of a Trojan horror that defies easy classification, by design. Bodell’s sneaky debut feature is occasionally too sparse in its worldbuilding in its bid to preserve the mystery, but not enough to detract from the thrilling road thriller that transforms into a completely left-field type of horror we don’t get nearly enough of. The stripped-down tribute to a classic horror staple catches you off guard in more ways than one, marking Bodell as one to watch.”
In other words, there’s a lot more than meets the eye to Hellcat‘s simple infection setup, delivering plenty of surprises along its bumpy road of horrors.
Check out the trailer and poster below and add Hellcat to your watchlists asap.
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