Earlier this year, New Line Cinema acquired the rights to a short horror story titled The Occupant, and THR reports today that Blair Butler (Hell Fest, The Invitation) has been hired to write the script. Previously announced, Zach Cregger (Barbarian) will produce the film.
Running just 39 pages long, the original horror story was written by Victor Sweetser.
THR notes, “New Line is keeping the logline of the take in the basement, but story is a spin on the traditional haunted house tale in which a family moves into a spooky home. In this case, when a mysterious, old house is moved to a small town, something sinister arrives with it.”
Roy Lee and Scott Glassgold will produce the film adaptation alongside Cregger.
Deadline had previously provided the following synopsis…
“This is the story of a 100-year old Victorian home offered up for free, with the caveat the new owner has to put it on a flatbed and move it from the lot it occupies. The story begins cleverly with texts back and forth between a husband and a wife, who cannot get over their good luck to be chosen to take the house. Naturally, we learn there is no such thing as a free house.
“The narrator is a teen named Chloe, who lives in the town where the home is being moved. She and her boyfriend Mason are disappointed to see it’s going to be plopped onto The Shole, their nickname for the shithole empty lot where the neighborhood kids go to drink, smoke and lose their virginity. They decide to explore the structure before the homeowners move in.
“In a yarn that is one part Poltergeist mixed in with Stephen King, they learn the house is haunted, and its supernatural occupant begins to turn itself loose on members of its new neighborhood, with horrifying results. It becomes a full fledged scare fest.”
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