Coming off from the critical success of Sam Mendes’ 1917, Deadline reports that New Republic Pictures has successfully acquired the rights to author Grady Hendrix’s novel titled Horrorstör, which is centered around a haunted IKEA-like furniture store. The production company is planning to adapt the horror comedy novel into a feature.
“I wrote Horrorstör to be simultaneously funny and scary, while paying tribute to the retail warriors who staff our big box stores.” Hendrix said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to adapt my novel into a movie is a dream come true. I couldn’t be more excited about taking an audience and trapping them overnight with me in the flatpack hell that is Orsk — the ultimate haunted house, full of Infinite aisles, murderous ghosts, and incomprehensible faux-Scandinavian names.”
RELATED: Killing Eve’s Damon Thomas to Helm My Best Friend’s Exorcism Film
First published in 2013, Horrorstör is set in Cleveland, Ohio where employees of Orsk furniture superstore have been experiencing something strange about their workplace. Every morning, they arrive to find broken Kjerring bookshelves, shattered Glans water goblets, and smashed Liripip wardrobes. However, the security cameras are not picking up the unusual things happening at night that’s why the store managers are already panicking especially when their sales are being affected by this.
Pick up a copy of the book here!
To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.
RELATED: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires Series in the Works at Amazon
The film adaptation will be executive produced by Hendrix and Quirk Books’ Brett Cohen. New Republic’s Brad Fischer and Brian Oliver will be producing along with Aperture Entertainment’s Adam Goldworm. The novel was previously optioned by Fox and AMC in 2015 as an attempt to adapt the novel into a series.
Hendrix is best known for writing many horror novels such as Horrorstor, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, We Sold Our Souls and Paperback from Hell: The Twister History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction. The latter had earned him a Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction in 2018. He also wrote the screenplay for last year’s comedy horror film Satanic Panic which starred Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O’Connell.
