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Horror: Shirley haunts her own hill house in first trailer; Shudder nabs Impetigore; Betaal

By Jacob Oller
SHIRLEY Elisabeth Moss and Odessa Young

The Haunting of Hill House may be her most famous work, but the upcoming biopic about author Shirley Jackson is looking to haunt a particular house of its own. Life imitating art? Perhaps, minus a few ghosts. But that doesn’t mean Sundance hit Shirley, from Neon, isn’t going to freak fans out. Now that the first trailer has dropped, horror hounds can dig into a film that takes them inside the mind of one of the genre’s literary greats.

Directed by Josephine Decker from Sarah Gubbins’ script, the film gives star Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid's Tale) some more genre to sink her chops into after the acclaimed actress already blew the socks off the horror world earlier this year with The Invisible Man. Madness and murder are never far from the screen in this first footage.

Take a look:

While it’s not as pitch-black spooky as the Netflix adaptation of her work, this look at Shirley Jackson seems to tap into the troubled minds of cinematic writers like The Shining's Jack Torrance with a delightfully psychosexual twist. Perhaps there will be some similar demon-wrestling late in the film?

Shirley also stars Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Logan Lerman and drops on June 5.


Next, one of Indonesia’s horror hits from last year is coming stateside thanks to Shudder. Impetigore, known as Perempuan Tanah Jahanam in writer/director Joko Anwar’s home country was a box office smash in Indonesia and is coming to the U.S., U.K., and Canada after playing at Sundance earlier this year.

Variety reports that team-up hopes to repeat the success of Anwar’s previous film Satan’s Slaves, which was a popular Shudder Original. “Joko Anwar is a master of modern horror, and Satan’s Slaves is one of the most loved — and scariest movies on Shudder. We couldn’t wait to work with him again,” said Shudder GM Craig Engler.

The film stars Tara Basro, Marissa Anita, Ario Bayu, Christine Hakim, and Asmara Abigail in its tale of a woman under siege by neighbors that think she’s cursed. Anwar said the movie is a “love letter to horror movies I grew up with, slashers, ghost stories, wrapped in a tragic family drama not unlike my family.”

Impetigore looks to hit the service on July 23.


Finally, Blumhouse is teaming up with Netflix for a new Indian horror series called Betaal. Expect a novel take on the zombie story, a la Netflix's Korean Kingdom series, from this rural thriller. The first trailer certainly kicks things off with a bang, including a curse, an armed police force, and a remote mountain village.

Nothing like cleansing a haunted mountain of its undead curse to get the blood flowing (out of the body, that is). Check it out:

The show from creator/director/writer Patrick Graham, co-director Nikhil Mahajan, co-writer Suhani Kanwar looks like a perfectly bonkers piece of genre schlock. Betaal stars Viineet Kumar, Aahana Kumra, Suchitra Pillai, Jitendra Joshi, Jatin Goswami, Manjiri Pupala, and Syna Anand as it promises massive zombie battles and plenty of magical lore.

Betaal hits Netflix on May 24.