Netflix have landed James Wan's forthcoming slasher movie, There's Someone Inside Your House. Originally a young adult novel by Stephanie Perkins, There's Someone Inside Your House tells the story of Makani Young, an adolescent girl forced to move from Hawaii to Nebraska by her parents. As she attempts to negotiate the tricky obstacle course of teenage life and deal with the added complications of moving to a new high school, Makani's world is thrown into further turmoil when her classmates start dying in a manner both ruthless and gruesome.
Merging horror, Y.A. themes, and romance, There's Someone Inside Your House was a definite step into unfamiliar territory for author Perkins; however, it's a gamble that appears to have paid off. Although the novel released only a few months ago, there has already been a scramble amongst studios for the rights to adapt the New York Times bestseller book into a movie, particularly with James Wan and his Atomic Monster company involved in the production. And it looks like the bidding war has finally settled.
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Deadline reports that Netflix has landed the rights to There's Someone Inside Your House. The project will now be produced by both Wan's Atomic Monster and Stranger Things production company, 21 Laps. While the movie is still in the fledgling stages, it's understood that Dan Cohen and Michael Clear will produce, with a screenplay from Shazam! scribe, Henry Gayden. James Wan is not expected to direct.
James Wan's pedigree within the horror genre is well-documented, having grabbed the cinema world's attention with Saw and going on to direct Insidious and The Conjuring. Although Wan has since moved onto more mainstream fare with Furious 7 and DC's Aquaman, he's arguably responsible for the current state of popular horror cinema, and his company's involvement will bring a wealth of experience to There's Someone Inside Your House.
The addition of 21 Laps to the project makes for a tantalizing pairing. There are plenty of parallels between Stephanie Perkins' novel and Stranger Things in terms of tone and the melding of high-school drama with more grisly and mysterious goings on. There's Someone Inside Your House is far from an all-out gore fest and having the Stranger Things producers on board, particularly Shawn Levy, will hopefully help create a pleasing balance between a horror slasher and high-school coming of age tale.
However, this is potentially where There's Someone Inside Your House might slip up. While the original book was undoubtedly popular, it perhaps wasn't aimed at readers expecting a full-on horror story. And with James Wan involved in production, there's a chance that this is exactly what many movie-goers will be expecting. If the film adaptation decides to ramp up the scarier elements, fans of the novel may feel let down, but if it stays true to the source material, Netflix will need to be careful not to market the movie as a straight up fright-fest.
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Source: Deadline