If we’ve learned anything from horror films, it’s that you shouldn’t visit places with names like “Fairfield Academy.” A name like that, while technically “plain,” just stinks with casual creepiness – you know the damn place is haunted. And yet,Suki Waterhousewill be visiting Fairfield Academy to get into all kinds of spooky situations as a part ofSeance, the upcoming horror flick from writer/directorSimon Barrett.
Barrett is known primarily as a writer who collaborates with directorAdam Wingardon contemporary genre classics likeYou’re NextandThe Guest. While he directed the framing segment in horror anthologyV/H/S 2,Seancewill be Barrett’s feature-length directorial debut, based on a screenplay he wrote. WhileYou’re NextandThe Guestboth complicated their more traditional genre trappings with elements of pitch-black comedy and social commentary,Seancesounds like a meat-and-potatoes capital H Horror film, with no strings attached. A new girl visits an all-girls school only to find it’s being haunted by a vengeful ghost? That’s a classic horror story right there! However, if we’ve learned anything from Barrett’s previous work, it’s that looks can be deceiving…
Barrett is developing the project with production companies Dark Castle Entertainment and HanWay Films. In their press release, HanWay Films Vice Chairman Peter Watson said, “You can literally hear the audience screaming when you read the script. Seance is the perfect film to start a collaboration with Dark Castle, our partners in all this spooky mayhem!” (Quick sidebar: Can every film exec use words like “spooky mayhem” more often? Thanks, Hollywood!) At the center of this “spooky mayhem”? Waterhouse, who’s quite used to centering offbeat genre fare likeAssassination NationandThe Bad Batch. Dark Castle CEO Hal Sadoff says, “Suki Waterhouse is the perfect actor to bring this scary story to life,” and we tend to agree. She’s a powerful screen presence, and a collaboration between her and Barrett promises much to be excited about.
The official synopsis forSeanceis below. For more on Barrett’s work,check out our interview with him and Wingard.
Camille Meadows (Waterhouse) is the new girl at the prestigious Fairfield Academy for Girls, drawn into the mystery surrounding Kerrie, a student who died following a seance summoning the legendary Fairfield Ghost. Camille befriends Kerrie’s clique. When they invite her to their next seance, she initially believes that she is being pranked, but then the girls start being killed off one by one.
The Fairfield Ghost has come to take its revenge and Camille must turn detective and solve the mystery, or suffer the same fate.
