Movies
The Creepy ‘Grim Night’ Teaser That Almost Became a Movie from ‘The Strangers’ Director
One night a year… they come.
Back in 2013, James DeMonaco’s The Purge offered a brilliant and highly original premise: one night every year, all crime (including murder) is completely and totally legal. But two years before that, we almost found ourselves in a world where something just as terrifying happened once a year. In Grim Night, literal grim reapers were to overtake the world one night every year.
Way back in 2011 it was announced that Universal had won an auction for the rights to make Grim Night, a thriller penned by Brandon Bestenheider & Allen Bey and to be produced by Bryan Bertino and his Unbroken Films. At the time, the Bertino-directed The Strangers had only a few years prior terrified audiences, which no doubt played a role in Universal jumping on board.
But Grim Night wasn’t just a concept or a script. In order to generate interest in the project, Bertino and his team put together a nearly two-minute teaser trailer for the film, which debuted on horror sites (including this one) in the summer of 2011. The trailer got fans talking and compelled Universal to action; it was so good that they dropped nearly seven figures to scoop it up.
The full premise was as follows:
Every year during a single night, strange creatures known as “Grims” attack people from all over the globe and kills thousands. The story centers on a family in a small American town that gets attacked and has to defend themselves.
It’s now been six years since we first saw the evocative teaser trailer for Grim Night, and it’s one that I have thought about fairly often over the years. I remember being incredibly excited about the film based on the teaser alone, and I still feel that it’s a concept that could totally be the next big horror franchise. It may not be as fresh in the wake of The Purge, but it’s different enough.
So what happened? Well, Grim Night basically dropped off the face of the Earth shortly after Universal acquired it. Dennis Gansel (We Are the Night) was at the time slated to direct the film, but production never began and nothing ever came of it. It simply vanished without a trace, and at this point, it seems likely that we’ll never hear from it again. Hollywood sure is a fickle business.
Do you remember this creepy teaser?
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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