A pretty unique horror anthology series is joining the ever-growing list of scary television shows, and its mission is essentially to make a horror short for almost every single holiday. Produced by Jason Blum and David Alexa Faigen, Into the Dark will have a 12-episode run on over the course of a year. During this year-long run, the show will take on the ambitious task of making each and every episode based on a different holiday, bringing the scares to previously uncharted territory. No holiday or celebration is safe.
Besides the usual holiday-horror route of Halloween and Christmas, the more out of the box holidays include Easter, Mother’s Day, Earth Day, and even Thanksgiving, according to the new teaser. Check out the eerie Easter Bunny in the clip below:
The official series synopsis reads:
In partnership with Blumhouse Television, ‘Into The Dark’ is a horror event series from prolific, award-winning producer Jason Blum’s independent TV studio. The series includes 12 super-sized episodes, with a new installment released each month inspired by a holiday and will feature Blumhouse’s signature genre/thriller spin on the story.
Clearly, this is going to be one ambitious project. Not only is Blumhouse TV attempting to make obscure holidays like Flag Day scary, but they are enlisting the services of all new writers, directors, and actors for each episode. Into the Dark sounds more like a strict horror version of Black Mirror in terms of the variety and unique feeling of each episode as a result of the different talent working on each.
This is quite the follow-up to Blumhouse TV’s most recent horror television venture, the Netflix miniseries Ghoul. The Indian horror production featured an intriguing sci-fi setting, where a supernatural being lurked amongst the inhabitants of the dystopia. Original ideas like these are in abundance over at Blumhouse, it seems.
It makes sense that Blumhouse TV’s next project will be relatively experimental just like Ghoul, though Into the Dark truly takes the cake on having a double-take worthy premise. It goes without saying that this series is wholeheartedly granting the wishes of horror fans who wish they had scary content all year round, instead of just during the months of September and October. The first episode, which logically will be the series’ Halloween-set chapter, will be written and directed by Paul Davis and Paul Fisher. Cryptically titled “Body,” it centers around an overconfident hitman with style and panache, hunting amongst the “selfie culture” of LA on Halloween night.
This inciting episode stars Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express) and Rebecca Rittenhouse (The Handmaid’s Tale). Following this Halloween-set premiere, Into the Dark will feature (naturally) a Thanksgiving episode that’s sure to carve up some pretty original scares. Called “Flesh & Blood,” it’s not hard to imagine the direction the events of this particular holiday are headed. Scream and My Bloody Valentine editor Patrick Lussier is set to direct this ravenous second episode, which stars American Horror Story Season 1’s Dermot Mulroney among other talents.
As for the other holidays that make up the other 10 episodes, one can only guess what the series has in store for us. Some of the most challenging in terms of actually making the episode scary are likely Flag Day and Earth Day. Obviously, there will be a sinister take on the Easter Bunny for Easter, and Christmas shouldn’t be too tricky. What would be really fun would be if Blum and co. took the holiday horror genre’s most familiar companion, Christmas, and showed us something we’d never seen before in that setting.
Grandparent’s Day, also advertised in the teaser, automatically brings M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit to mind, but maybe Hulu will create something a little more outside the box than just confused and murderous grandparents. Perhaps an epidemic of horrifying rapid-aging, or a sci-fi tale about the ritual killing of the elderly in the name of population control instead. Who knows?! There are an endless amount of routes they could take with so many arbitrary holidays at their disposal! In short, this could very easily be either the greatest horror series to ever grace streaming television or a humorously cheesy attempt at experimental horror.
Into the Dark will premiere on Hulu on October 5th with “Body,” and “Flesh & Blood” will creep up not too far behind on November 2nd. As all 12 episodes will be stretched out over a year, it’s likely the third and fourth chapters of the anthology series will center around Christmas and New Years Eve. Let’s hope Krampus doesn’t make an appearance.