David Cronenberg’s 1981 horror movie Scanners is becoming a HBO series, with a Black Mirror writer as showrunner, and a Lovecraft Country director. In further Cronenberg news, Crimes of the Future star Léa Seydoux has joined the cast of his next horror movie – The Shrouds.
William Bridges, who co-wrote what is widely considered one of the best Black Mirror episodes – USS Callister – will write and be the showrunner of the in-development series. Bridges was also a writer on Stranger Things and Soulmates (which is very similar to Black Mirror). Yann Demange, who directed the Lovecraft Country pilot, will direct. Demange directed the movies 71 and White Boy Rick. He also directed TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Top Boy.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The series is being described as a visceral thriller set in the mind-bending world of Cronenberg’s film. It will focus on two women living on the fringes of modern society who are pursued by relentless agents with unimaginable powers and thus must learn to work together to topple a vast conspiracy determined to bring them to heel.”
We went eight long years with no Cronenberg movies, and he returned this year to the realm of body horror with Crimes of the Future. The Shrouds looks set to continue that trend, as the plot revolves around the decomposition of dead bodies. “Karsh (Vincent Cassel), an innovative businessman and grieving widower, builds a novel device to connect with the dead inside a burial shroud. This burial tool installed at his own state-of-the-art – though controversial – cemetery allows him and his clients to watch their specific departed loved one decompose in real time.” It has also been described as personal to Cronenberg, with some autobiographical elements.
Scanners kicked off a slew of body horror movies for Cronenberg, which continued through the 80s and 90s, including Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Crash, and eXistenZ. In the 2000s and 2010s, he left the body horror sub-genre and made several thrillers starring Viggo Mortensen and Robert Pattinson.
While we wait for more news on the Scanners series and The Shrouds, check out our guide to the best Netflix horror movies.