Lionsgate Developing Low-Budget Horror ‘Peekers’ [Video]
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Lionsgate has picked up a pitch for a low-budget horror film fromMike FlanaganandJeff Howard, and the story has kind of a strangeSilent HillmeetsThe Purgesorta slant. It’s based on a short story by Irish novelistKealan Patrick Burke, and finds a couple characters trapped in a town in which the entire population has been replaced by grinning dopplegangers who like to hide around corners. That’s where the titlePeekerscomes from, and while it sounds a bit sill, the original story has enough of a creepy tone that, adapted and expanded properly, it might make for a good film.
Deadlinedescribes the story:
That’s a bit different from theAmazon pagefor the short story, which describes it as follows:
Larry just wants to enjoy the first day of his retirement. But there are a couple of obstacles in his way. First, there are the kids next door who insist on racing their dirt bikes through his yard. And then there’s his eccentric neighbor Zach, who comes looking for Larry’s help, to verify that Zach isn’t losing his mind. Because there is something in his house that couldn’t possibly be real…Something terrifying…
In fact, the short story has already been adapted into a short film, and the eight minute film runs longer than it’ll probably take you to read the story. The actual story is almost completely summarized by that paragraph above, and the pitch for this film is essentially the continuation of the tale after it concludes on the page. Here’s the short film, which is basically a microbudget version of the tale.
