After delivering two big old blasts of genre fun with home invasion horror-comedy You’re Next and John Carpenter riff The Guest, Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett are diving back into horror for their next collaboration. Lionsgate recently snagged the pair for The Woods, a mysterious horror film that Wingard will direct from a script by Barrett.
Not much is known about the project, though it will focus on a group of college students on a camping trip who “discover they are not alone.” A few years ago, such a generic premise (done to death by the Friday the 13th franchise, among others) would have made many horror aficionados groan in agony, but then along came Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s delightful The Cabin in the Woods, which turned the subgenre on its head to great effect. If Wingard and Barrett can pull off a similar trick (and if there are any two horror filmmakers out there today who can, it’s them), it will be well worth traveling into their Woods.
Since The Guest, Wingard has also been keeping busy on the small screen, directing the pilot for Cinemax’s Outcast. Whether we’ll get to watch The Woods or that project first remains to be seen.
Wingard and Barrett, along with producers Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Keith Calder and Jessica Wu, are planning to move fast on this project, aiming for a shoot this spring with a cast of mostly unknown actors so as to give the movie maximum scares and unpredictability. You’re Next introduced us all to the remarkable talents of Sharni Vinson, and The Guest gave Maika Monroe a pretty stellar showcase, so here’s hoping The Woods hands us another talented actress on the verge of a major breakthrough.
The Woods will likely arrive sometime next year on the festival circuit (it’s easy to imagine the project popping up at SXSW next year or maybe even Fantastic Fest). We’ll keep you posted when we hear more.
