Over the past decade, a surprising cultural shift has taken shape in genre spaces that has proven to be not only a great pivot but one no one expected. In 2017, Jordan Peele made his feature film debut as a writer and director with the Blumhouse-produced Get Out, shifting away from his sketch comedy past to deliver an original horror tale. That film would go on to be an international hit, an Oscar-winner, and set up Peele as one of the most original voices in horror for the century. He wasn’t the only one, though, with former Whitest Kids U’ Know comedian Zach Cregger following a similar path, directing the horror hits Barbarian and Weapons.
Another heavy hitter is about to enter the same arena, though, and it’s one fans should be very excited about. Deadline brings word that Bill Hader, the Saturday Night Live alum and creator/star of HBO’s Barry, will write, direct, and star in an upcoming horror film, titled They Know. In the film, a divorced dad (played by Hader) “grows suspicious that his ex-wife is secretly dating a mysterious man who is having a strange influence on their children.” Fans of Hader’s Barry should already be excited about him getting behind the camera again, but the comedian’s love for horror has us convinced he’ll join Peele and Cregger as a great comedian turned horror maestro.
Bill Hader Will Write, Direct, and Star in New Horror Movie They Know
It’s worth noting that Hader previously teased a horror movie script he’d written and wanted to star in back in 2023, as Barry was coming to an end. Last summer he also offered some more details about the script in an interview on The A24 Podcast, revealing to filmmaker Ari Aster that his movie Eddington inspired him to return to the script he’d written after it was rejected by a major movie producer for being too “mean-spirited, horrible, and cynical.”
“It was this interesting thing that happened, and I think it was just because I was very vulnerable after finishing Barry, and this pressure of, ‘What are you going to do next,’ or whatever, it was all self-imposed; no one was asking me that, it was just my own neurosis, that I really lost my confidence. And so I set it aside for a bit, and will go back to it I know. But when I saw Eddington, I was like, ‘Yes, okay. I’m going to go back to that project because he did it…He had the balls to do the thing that I kind of was talked out of.’”
Hader’s teases about the script itself, along with the amazing work he did directing in Barry (he won three Directors Guild of America prizes for his work behind the camera), are already two reasons to have a lot of hype for They Know, but it’s not all. Throughout his years in Hollywood, Hader has been very open about his love for not only feature films as a whole, but specifically the horror genre. In addition to starring in IT: Chapter Two, Hader once hosted Turner Classic Movies’ “Friday Night Spooklight,” where he introduced and spoke at length about some of his favorite classic titles from the genre like Horror of Dracula, Carnival of Souls, The Haunting, Dead of Night, A Bucket of Blood, and Night of the Living Dead.
Hader not only has the craft sensibilities to make a horror movie as a filmmaker, but he has proven time and time again that he knows the genre inside and out as a fan. This, coupled with the recent track record of comedians moving into horror, has They Know not only high on a Most Anticipated list, but little doubt that it will be something distinct in the horror genre. It can’t get here soon enough.