Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider‘s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.
Jeremy Saulnier has already made a backstage hallway feel like one of the most dangerous places on Earth. His Green Room trapped a punk band inside a venue after witnessing a murder, building an unbearably tense thriller around their attempts to escape. Following Rebel Ridge, the filmmaker is returning to horror with another setting that offers plenty of places to hide and very little reason to feel safe.
This time, the danger begins inside a haunted attraction. The setting immediately complicates what anyone can trust, from the person wearing a mask to the blood covering the floor. It is a promising place to start a mystery, particularly with a filmmaker whose previous work has made violence feel so sudden and frightening.
A24 has released the official teaser for Slayground, the new thriller written and directed by Saulnier and starring Cory Michael Smith (Gotham). The footage offers a clearer introduction to the movie following an earlier security-camera teaser, revealing a story that extends beyond the attraction into a desperate search for answers. Slayground opens in theaters January 29, 2027, bringing its Halloween nightmare into the new year.
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever. - You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
own head is where this does its damage. - These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
because they are weak. They lose because they are tired. - You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you. - You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
know that feeling from real life too. - The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
have met those adults. - By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
somebody who was at the party. - You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
same way you watch films. - The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention. - Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
room that quietly stops feeling ordinary. - Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
personal, which is rarer than it sounds. - This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
the ones who are not alone and refuse to be. - Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
standing in the hallway.
Who Stars in Jeremy Saulnier’s ‘Slayground’?
Smith plays scare-actor “Metal Mike” Graves, who wakes up surrounded by his murdered co-workers without remembering what happened. With a statewide manhunt closing in, Mike tries to uncover the truth while facing the possibility that he was responsible. The premise gives him two problems to solve at once: escaping the people pursuing him and finding out whether their suspicions are justified.
Smith leads an ensemble that includes Chase Sui Wonders and Sophie Wilde, with Imogen Poots also appearing. The cast brings Poots back into a Saulnier movie following Green Room, while Wilde returns to A24 horror after Talk to Me. James Badge Dale, Stephen Root, Young Mazino, and Matty Matheson are also among the actors joining the thriller. The movie was previously known as October, a title that reflected its seasonal setting. Saulnier directs from his own screenplay, with Eli Bush, Richard Peete, and Skei Saulnier producing alongside him. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the music, adding another reason to anticipate how the movie will sustain the tension suggested by its premise. The unanswered question is how much Mike’s missing memory is protecting him from. Being the surviving employee at a massacre already makes him a target, and investigating it could leave him with answers he does not want.
Slayground releases in theaters January 29, 2027.
Slayground
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Enjoying this article? Support our work with a small crypto donation.Cory Michael Smith
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Chase Sui Wonders
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Sophie Wilde
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