Back together — Mike Flanagan and Matthew Lillard's next horror film ropes in a Prey star
Mike Flanagan’s next horror film brings a familiar face back into his orbit — and teams them with a Prey star you’ll recognise.
If you keep half an eye on horror, you’ll know Mike Flanagan never stays quiet for long. The next project he’s getting off the ground is a psychological horror called Rot, and the cast list is a bit of a ‘who’s who’ from recent genre hits. We’ve got Matthew Lillard back with Flanagan (less than two years after their last run together), plus Amber Midthunder (yes, her from Prey), and rising star Cooper Koch, still riding the acclaim from all those awards nods. It’s also worth flagging that this will be Alexandra Magistro’s first time directing a feature, so chalk it up as a major crossroads for most of the people involved.
Rot shoots in Vancouver in November 2026.
The story and who’s in it
The script for Rot came from Geo Bradley and landed on the 2024 Black List, which is always a bit of a shop window for the best screenplays not yet produced. The premise is firmly on brand for Flanagan’s crowd: the main character is a solitary trauma cleaner, not big on social skills, who deals with obsessive compulsions and has just lost his hoarder mum. He’s forced, through his work, to face up to his own past — the further he goes, the more his grip on reality fractures. It’s meant to blend psychological unease with a strong dose of body horror, the sort of thing you might get if Repulsion and Cronenberg’s best night sweats had a baby.
Cooper Koch, hot off both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his turn as Erik Menendez (in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story), is taking the lead. He’s also set to pop up in Luca Guadagnino’s next outing, Artificial. Amber Midthunder broke out properly with Prey, but she’s keeping busy: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and Novocaine are both recent ticks on her CV. Matthew Lillard, never short of genre gigs, has gone from Scream 7, to Daredevil: Born Again, to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 — the man barely has time to sleep, let alone spend it outside haunted locations. He and Flanagan already crossed paths with The Life of Chuck in 2024, and he’ll appear with Midthunder in Flanagan’s TV take on Carrie as well.
Who’s running the show?
Alexandra Magistro is directing Rot, with Flanagan producing under his Red Room Pictures label. He’s joined on the production side by Molly C. Quinn, Matthew M. Welty, and Elan Gale. The screenplay is from Geo Bradley, whose work is finally making it to the screen after Black List buzz. Filming starts in Vancouver towards the end of 2026, but there’s still no word on a release date or the rest of the cast. All a bit cloak-and-dagger for now.