Movies
Blumhouse’s ‘Dead by Daylight’ Adaptation Finds Director in ‘The Damned’ Filmmaker
The 10th anniversary celebrations of Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight brought no shortage of announcements last night, including the reveal that Atomic Monster and Blumhouse’s feature adaptation has found its director.
The Damned filmmaker Thordur Palsson has been tapped to helm the adaptation, producers Jason Blum and Stephen Mulrooney announced on stage last night.
“There is no better moment than the tenth anniversary to share this news. Thordur is the filmmaker we trust to carry Dead by Daylight from the screen you play on to the big screen you watch in theaters,” said Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse Atomic Monster.
“For me, the main thing is capturing the feeling of playing Dead by Daylight,” said Palsson. “The main thing is I want to capture the feeling of looking over your shoulder. I want to capture the dread, the tension, the fear of what’s waiting for you in The Fog.”
The “scary cinematic adaptation” of the Behaviour Interactive video game will be written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Orphan, Aquaman, The Conjuring 2) and French master of horror Alexandre Aja (High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes, Piranha 3D, Crawl).
Launched in 2016, the popular Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer slasher video game that pits characters up against slasher maniacs both original and iconic to the world of horror.
Expect to visit iconic backdrops like The MacMillan Estate and Greenville in the adaptation, which is expected to begin production in 2027.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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