Normally, the prospect of watching and writing about bit of marketing for a finished product that doesn’t exist in any sort of complete state seems both silly and bizarre. But all bets are off when said wacky marketing is just like totally awesome.
Meet Grim Night, a spec script written by a pair of first-time feature film screenwriters, Brandon Besteheider and Allen Bey. The two sold their script to Universal earlier this week, along with producers Bryan Bertino and Adrienne Brittle, with Deadline Calabasas reporting that the deal rang up to the “high six- or seven-figure range” (big range!). Pre-sale, the team behind Grim Night put together a teaser trailer for the film (the script?) and tossed it up on the Internet to garner some industry buzz. It clearly worked.
Grim Night imagines a world where creatures, called Grims, kill thousands of people around the world on one terrifying night every year. Let’s get up close and personal with those Grims now. Check out the teaser trailer for, well, I guess it’s like a teaser trailer for the script for Grim Night, after the break.
There’s a ton of stuff I love about this plot. You get a sort of twist on the “home invasion” plot, a vague sense of potentially apocalyptic disaster, the intensity of a world-wide terror, and a pseudo-alien takeover vibe. Grim Night looks like equal parts The Strangers, Skyline, The Village, District 9, and Canada’s own Last Night. Does that sound weird? I think it sounds wonderful. The film will reportedly focus on a small-town American family who are targeted by the Grims, and who attempt to fight them off for survival.
Of course, this teaser trailer is really just a glorified sizzle reel that gives an idea of how Besteheider and Bey imagine their film translating to screen. Yet, here they’ve already managed to build a monster, a world, and a specific tone. It will be pretty interesting to see how that ultimately comes together in a final Grim Night product.
Let’s start speculating now ‐ who should direct the film? Maybe Bertino himself? He does know a thing or two about lensing terrifying home invasions… [The Hollywood Reporter, /Film]
