Jeremy Saulnier is one of my favorite genre directors, but he deserves more love. His punks versus Neo-Nazis thriller Green Room got some attention; it should have gotten more. (Go check out his earlier, even better revenge movie Blue Ruin while you’re at it.)
Saulnier went six years between projects from 2018 and 2024, but when he returned with Rebel Ridge — a modern riff on First Blood starring Lanterns’ Aaron Pierre — he delivered yet another amazingly tense and exciting film. Maybe re-teaming with A24 (who previously distributed Green Room) will be the thing that makes him more of a household name. His new film is Slayground, a peppy title that suggests self-referential horror — although the trailer makes it look more like the thrillers Saulnier typically makes, with a dude on the run for his life.
The setting is definitely spooky — a Halloween haunted house attraction where one of the actors (Cory Michael Smith) winds up framed for murder. (Or maybe he did it and he just doesn’t remember??) Plus: Music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross! Check out the Slayground trailer below:
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There’s a new poster for for the film as well that’s pretty hilarious.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
Scare-actor “Metal Mike” Graves wakes up in a haunted attraction surrounded by the dead bodies of his co-workers with no memory of how they got there. As a state-wide manhunt closes in, he races to uncover the truth – even if the trail leads straight back to him.
Slayground is scheduled to open in theaters on January 29, 2027.
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