Bestselling novel The Housemaid is getting a feature film adaptation from director Paul Feig (A Simple Favor, Ghostbusters), and Lionsgate has now shifted the film’s release date.
Originally set for release on Christmas Day (December 25, 2025), Paul Feig’s thriller The Housemaid will now release in theaters one week earlier on December 19, 2025.
Deadline reports, “The studio is so over the moon… that the plan is to get the age 18-24 bunch who are off from college, who’ll then spread the word of mouth heading into Christmas.”
In Paul Feig’s suspense thriller The Housemaid, which adapts Freida McFadden’s novel, “Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is a struggling young woman who is relieved to get a fresh start as a housemaid to Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), a wealthy couple.
“She soon learns that the family’s secrets are far more dangerous than her own.”
Michele Morrone also stars in The Housemaid.
Rebecca Sonnenshine (“The Boys”) adapted McFadden’s psychological thriller novel. Published in 2022, the novel was an international bestseller. You can grab a copy on Amazon today.
The Housemaid is actually a three book series, with the third installment published earlier this year. The sequels are titled The Housemaid’s Secret and The Housemaid Is Watching.
Cannibal films can be many things. Some are grim depictions of survival at any cost while others are gut-churning stories of shocking depravity. We expect to be disturbed when we watch a movie about the consumption of human flesh. What we don’t expect is singing and dancing. But Matt Stone and Trey Parker give us just that in the bizarre cult classic Cannibal! The Musical.
Based on the true story of Alfred Packer, the 1993 film is a strange blend of Troma Entertainment and old-fashioned true crime. Released just before writer Stone and writer/director Parker became household names with “South Park,” this quirky horror comedy features their signature brand of deft irreverence and intentional offensiveness. While some elements of this B-movie marvel have not aged particularly well, that’s all part of the stoner charm of this offbeat retelling of an equally odd chapter in American life.
Cannibal! The Musical earns its Troma cred just moments after the curtain lifts. Title cards situate us in the late 19th century then we’re thrust into the action as a maniacal man chomps through humans in a snowy forest. With garish blood and shoddy effects, we watch as he beats a man with a severed arm before viciously ripping out another man’s tongue. Just as this depraved adventurer tilts the dripping organ into his upturned mouth, we cut to a lawyer hilariously reenacting this outlandish attack to a courtroom packed with rapt observers. On trial is Alfred Packer (Parker), a naive and confused prospector charged with the murder and cannibalism of his travelling party. This campy opener sets the perfect tone for a film that will be wholly over the top.
With ridiculous violence and cheap set design, on the nose songs, and D-list acting, the film perfectly encapsulates the essence of Troma. The longest-running independent film studio in the world is known for preposterous horror comedies and delightfully simplistic B-movie fare—the more gory and implausible, the better. Intrigued by the state’s curious folk figure, Colorado natives Stone and Parker first shot a 3-minute trailer for film class, then eventually raised $125,000 to expand the concept to a full-length feature.
Shot mostly on weekends and during spring break, co-star Ian Hardin would later note that most of the cast and crew failed the film class due to the time commitment. Sensing kinship, Troma would pick up the completed movie in 1996, finally allowing it to be seen outside of Colorado. Like other films from the notorious studio, Parker and Stone gleefully lean into the miniscule budget and DIY vibe, spinning gold from what other filmmakers would view as insurmountable limitations.
Despite its freakishly oddball tone, Cannibal! The Musical is surprisingly accurate, at least as far as the records show. Born in 1842, Alfred Packer—a.k.a. the Colorado Cannibal—was a real prospector who convinced a group of adventurous men to let him lead them through the San Juan Mountains only to become hopelessly lost. Purporting to be a wilderness guide, Packer quickly revealed himself to be a petty thief and compulsive liar, but only after it was too late to turn back. The inexperienced outdoorsman managed to find refuge at a welcoming Ute encampment, but ignored Chief Ouray’s sage advice to wait out the winter in relative safety. The five ill-equipped men who followed Packer back into the wilderness of Colorado Territory were never seen alive again. Packer himself emerged from the snowy woods two months later, alone and surprisingly well-fed. Claiming to have survived on “rabbits and rosebuds,” the shifty man would provide a variety of explanations before eventually confessing to cannibalism.
By centering this famously unreliable witness, Stone and Parker add unexpected empathy to a grisly tale. Their Packer is not a conniving thief and murderer but an endearing idealist hoping for a better life. He kindly leads this group of young men into the Colorado wilderness driven mostly by desire to find his beloved horse. Stone and Parker present Packer’s contested version of events, positioning the true murderer as Shannon Bell (Hardin), a combative member of the doomed party. Though Packer admitted to consuming fallen members of the group, he would ultimately claim to have stumbled upon Bell feasting on the bodies of their fellow travelers, having murdered them while Packer was out gathering firewood. The frightened guide had no choice but to kill the aggressor then finish off their bodies to save his own life. We’ll never know what actually happened in the snowy Colorado woods, but most scholars discount Packer’s admittedly self-serving claims, bolstered by a slew of butchered skeletons discovered several months later.
While Stone and Parker take an alternative view of this nebulous story, many narrative elements are pulled from fact. The doomed party really did eat their shoes after quickly running out of their scant supplies and Parker filmed in the actual courtroom where Packer was originally tried. The real “Colorado Cannibal” did receive a last minute reprieve, but it was issued nearly a decade after his initial arrest. In a bizarre twist, the self-professed victim escaped custody while awaiting trial in what is widely believed to be police intervention. Nine years later, Packer was discovered in Wyoming, living under the name John Schwartze—cheekily referenced with Parker’s credited name, Juan Schwartz.
Packer was once again arrested and hauled back to Colorado where he received the abnormally worded death sentence recreated in the film. The full text reads, “There were seven Democrats in Hinsdale County, but you, you voracious, man-eating son-of-a-bitch, you ate five of them. I sentence you to be hanged by the neck until you’re dead, dead, dead, as a warning against reducing the Democratic population of the state.” As seen in the film’s shocking conclusion, Packer really did receive a last-minute stay of execution and wound up serving eighteen years, before he was paroled for good behavior in 1901. The inmate’s cause was exalted by Polly Pry (Toddy Walters), a reporter for the Denver Post who is largely responsible for the sympathetic reframing of this perplexing story. Though Stone and Parker imply that the beautiful, young reporter is smitten with a wrongly accused hunk, it’s more likely that the savvy writer seized an opportunity to tell a compelling survival story.
Though strangely sensitive to Packer himself, Cannibal! The Musical showcases the duo’s trademark impertinence. Not only are the Ute tribe members played in stereotypical fashion by Asian actors, there’s a distinct rejection of basic authenticity. Though Pry makes repeated passes at the naive cannibal, Packer only has eyes for his horse. A running joke implies bestiality brought to life by the touching ballad, “When I Was on Top of You.” It’s the type of humor Stone and Parker would go on to perfect with their genre-busting satire South Park which premiered on Comedy Central just four years later. The low-fi cartoon made waves in 1997 with blatantly offensive social commentary. Now in its twenty-seventh season, the duo are still dismantling political systems with deft recreations of cultural events. With its loose, yet biting historical disdain, Cannibal! The Musical can be seen as a prototype of sorts to the unique brand of humor that would make Stone and Parker not only famous, but leading voices in political satire. We even get a tease of the now-iconic Cartman voice as the doomed travelers shop for supplies.
Foretelling the Oscar-nominated South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Cannibal! The Musical is filled with surprisingly good songs. Though some are annoying earworms, all are well-constructed musical numbers that display Parker’s talent for composition. The song “Shpadoinkle” is a clear nod to the rousing yet nonsensical “Shipoopi” from The Music Man as well as “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin” from Oklahoma! A playful song about drowning your sorrows by making a snowman is an eerie precursor to Disney’s Frozen and an extended conversation about the exact tonality of a musical duel between Packer’s party and a gang of miscreant fur trappers is a classical music nerd’s dream come true. The care taken with these peculiar, yet undeniably catchy songs indicates Parker’s understanding that while a film full of campy and cheap special effects can be delightful and even endearing, a series of shoddily-written musical numbers would replicate the feeling of being eaten alive.
On paper, Cannibal! The Musical sounds impossibly ridiculous—a true crime horror comedy centered on a sympathetic cannibal. In addition to the outsized humor, horror elements are simultaneously absurd and grotesque. An oozing bear trap wound develops comically inaccurate gangrene and a disgusting cyclopean figure can’t stop squirting puss from his ruined eye. And that’s not to mention the titular flesh-eating sequences that fall in the midst of rousing song and dance. But Parker and Stone commit to the bit and capture the spirit of Troma excess. Your mileage may vary for this campy satire, but those with a taste for tongue-in-cheek offensiveness will devour this startlingly charming true crime adaptation.
Please Don’t Destroy is leaving Saturday Night Live, but the group isn’t splitting up. In fact, certain members will continue to work on the sketch comedy show.
Motorheads won’t be getting a second season at Prime Video, but fans of the canceled series may yet have reason to hope that it will have a future elsewhere.
Actors Tiera Skovbye (“Riverdale“) and Kevin Alves (“Yellowjackets“) have signed on to star in the horror thrillerScareBNB, Deadline reports today.
ScareBNB hails from director AJ Lutsky (Garlic Parmesan).
The film follows four college friends — Nicole, Jennifer, Danielle, and the token guy, Evan — on a summer vacation at a secluded cabin. What starts as a seemingly idyllic getaway spirals into chaos when they find themselves being hunted by two psychotic attackers. But the real shock comes as the friends discover the motive and mastermind behind their twisted terror trip.
Kimi Alexander (Are We Done Now?) is producing. Todd Slater (The Optimist), Michael Olsen (Chained), and Patrick Phillips (Broken) are on board as executive producers.
“When fear gives way to humor, it creates this incredible vulnerable space where we can think and reflect without realizing we are doing it. That’s the key to this film,” Lutsky commented.
Slater added, “This thriller takes classic tropes and flips them on their head, a perfectly balanced slasher film with fun action and dark comedy. ScareBNB is exactly the kind of smart, elevated concept that’s both commercially viable and creatively fresh.”
Skovbye is known for playing Polly Cooper on The CW’s “Riverdale”, while Alves plays Travis Martinez in Showtime’s “Yellowjackets”.
Production on ScareBNB is set to begin this month near Kelowna, British Columbia. Stay tuned.
From writer-director Luc Besson (Léon: The Professional, The Fifth Element), Dracula: A Love Talehas been acquired by Vertical.
Deadline reports that the horror fantasy romance is being lined up for a wide North American theatrical release in the first quarter of 2026.
Based on Bram Stoker‘s classic 1897 novel, the film stars Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained), and Zoë Bleu.
A 15th-century prince (Jones) who denounces God after the devastating loss of his wife inherits an eternal curse: he becomes Dracula. Condemned to wander the centuries, he defies fate and death itself, guided by a single hope – to be reunited with his lost love.
“This film is very close to my heart and has been a joy to create over the past two years. At its core, it’s a love story—Dracula seen in a different light, as a man searching for his lost love over 400 years,” said Besson. “It’s been incredible to see audiences connect with it around the world, and I’m thrilled to partner with Vertical to bring this story to North American audiences.”
“Luc is a singular visionary and his elevated take on the Dracula story is something only he could imagine,” added Vertical partner Peter Jarowey. “We are thrilled to be working with such a major creative entity and are proud to be bringing this film to North American audiences.”
Dracula: A Love Tale features a score composed by Danny Elfman (Batman, Men in Black).
One of the most anticipated new horror movies this coming Fall is director Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, which frames a haunted house tale from the eyes of man’s best friend.
Good Boy marks Leonberg’s feature directorial debut from a script he co-wrote with Alex Cannon. It stars Indy, Leonberg’s real-life canine best friend, with the cast also including indie horror stalwart Larry Fessenden,Shane Jensen, and Arielle Friedman.
The concept behind Good Boy is so effective that not only are audiences deeply invested in Indy’s well-being, but the film is getting a wide theatrical release on October 3.
The fervor and excitement don’t surprise Leonberg, speaking with BD via email, one bit. “It kind of proves what I’ve always believed about dogs: In movies, you can kill off thousands of people, beloved figures, even kids, and audiences will barely flinch. But touch a single hair on a dog’s head and people will lose their minds! Just look at John Wick—the entire franchise is basically fueled by the fate of one dog. So to see people so invested in Indy feels weirdly natural, and honestly kind of wonderful.”
Production on Good Boy was extensive; it required a lot of training to get Indy into camera-ready shape, dodging ghosts in one creepy haunted house. “As a filmmaker, I was essentially in a constant state of hands-on production for those 3 years. The main reason for that is Indy could only film 1-3 hours a day, and I used the rest of those days to build shots that would cater to his specific strengths and weaknesses. Indy didn’t have a training schedule—I did. It surprises a lot of people to learn that Indy only knows a handful of tricks and commands—his ‘performance’ isn’t created through conventional training. Instead, it was about being ready with the camera in the right place at the right time, and coaxing him using a combination of everyday commands, weird sounds, physical gestures, and food. Once those moments were edited together, they created the illusion of a performance. There was a lot of planning, patience, re-shooting, and reorganizing my life to build the film around his habits.”
The training paid dividends; it’s all too easy to get anxious anytime Indy is confronted by sinister supernatural forces in Good Boy.Don’t worry, though, as this just speaks to the incredible central performance by Indy. “The ‘scary‘ scenes were always the most fun for Indy and the most creatively fulfilling for me. What looks like frightened barking or paralyzing fear onscreen is, in reality, Indy staring down a treat or a tennis ball just off camera that he really wants. (And which he got as soon as we ‘cut’). Thanks to the magic of filmmaking and juxtaposition of disparate shots (the Kuleshov Effect), the audience projects their own emotions onto those puppy-dog eyes.“
It’s not just the canine performance that immerses us in this story, but the clever camerawork that further puts us in Indy’s, well, paws. “Right off the bat, one huge challenge was purely practical: Indy’s eyeline is just 19 inches off the ground,“ Leonberg explains. “Getting the camera on his level meant building a custom rig and tripod designed just for him. For handheld work, it meant a lot of bending and crouching—my back definitely paid a price.Almost every single shot demanded some kind of invention, whether it was rethinking camera placement, finding a new way to work with Indy, building a new piece of equipment, or just embracing the chaos and following his lead.“
Just as important a character as Indy is the haunted house itself. In Good Boy, the location serves as both an onscreen character and a crucial training ground for Indy.
Leonberg says, “I wanted the house to feel like a liminal space, caught between the real and the supernatural, with foggy exteriors and an ethereal atmosphere. But Indy navigates the space intuitively, exploring nose-first in a way that feels completely lived-in. And in reality, it was ‘lived in’. We lived in the house for the entire duration of filming. Indy treating the house as his actual home is a big part of why his performance looks so natural–because it is!”
Leonberg drew inspiration from the family pet in Poltergeist, namely, in the way the dog seemed to notice the supernatural ahead of the Freelings. But that wasn’t the only famous horror pup that inspired the filmmaker. “Without a doubt, Jed—the dog (and original ‘Thing’) from The Thing—is an all-time great, and honestly, the bar we were aiming for with Indy.
“Jed was an astonishing animal actor. There are shots of him just wandering the outpost, essentially ‘casing the joint,‘ where the synchronicity between his behavior and the camera work is so precise it blows my mind. Jed was actually a wolf-dog hybrid, and Carpenter mentions on the DVD director’s commentary that’s why his stare feels so unsettling and unblinking. That intensity and the use of Jed’s subjectivity were hugely inspirational for us while working on Good Boy with Indy. And of course, I have to shout out Pipit from Jaws. RIP Pipit!”
