The author of You is calling the shots — The Attentionist is her directorial debut

Caroline Kepnes is properly shaking things up with her directorial debut, The Attentionist—and if you know her from You (that dark Netflix romp about Joe Goldberg and his cheery habit of murdering people), this is very much in her wheelhouse. Except this time, she’s running the show entirely, adapting one of her own short stories into a brand-new eight-parter set on the Massachusetts coast—overseen by herself, written by herself, and, for the first time, directed by herself.

The Attentionist will launch on YouTube as part of a significant slate effort from a media venture to be announced in the coming days.

This thing is adapted from Kepnes’ rather twisted short story—"incredibly creepy" is not an exaggeration—which originally featured in Tor Nightfire’s horror anthology Dark Stars. Instead of big city stalking, here it’s Cape Cod, mid-1990s, a tangle of locals wedged in with the flashy summer folk. In her words, it’s part "lakeside slasher" and part "boy-meets-girl oceanside summer romance", so you’re not exactly sure whether to pack a sun hat or a crucifix.

A Family Affair on the Cape

The plot: awkward 14-year-old Maeve and her older sister are stuck on the outside of the ‘cool’ crowd, desperate to breach that sparkling, yacht-club world. Then Maeve stumbles into a secret phone friendship with a boy from the boat club. Problem is, the voice on the line soon veers from mysterious to properly monstrous—and instead of slamming down the receiver, Maeve seems unbothered. Before long she’s dragging her entire family into goodness-knows-what. It’s a classic bit of Kepnes manipulation, where the line between slow-burn drama and out-and-out horror gets gleefully blurred.

Here's how Kepnes described making the leap from page to screen, talking to Variety: "I wrote The Attentionist as a mashup of genres and being at the helm of the adaptation is quite literally a dream come true. I wanted to combine my love of emotional creepy horror with my affection for small town family drama, and set it in the veiled, insular world of the Cape where I grew up."

All of this is happening with the help of producers Mark Roberts and Lorena David, who’ll be shooting on-location around Cape Cod. Casting is still underway, and if the script is anything like Kepnes’ past work, expect some proper oddballs in the mix. She even shared that she was out scouting filming spots when she got the news You had been called one of the NYT’s best thrillers of the 21st century. There’s a personal connection here too—her late parents, Monica and Harold Kepnes, were well-known in the area, and she made a point of saying the whole project feels like a nod to them, even if, as she joked, the original story "really disturbed" her mum.

Kepnes Goes Full Circle

If you’re wondering what ties this all together, Kepnes hasn’t just written a few novels—she’s got five in the You series, a Shirley Jackson Award-nominated short story to her name, and previous runs as a television writer (think 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager). If you’ve only seen the Netflix show, it drifted away from her version of Joe Goldberg pretty quickly, but this time, there’s no filter—she’s behind the wheel for the whole ride. The Attentionist is short-form, premium (whatever that means on YouTube), and you’ll probably need a stiff drink afterward. Expect more production and cast announcements once this still-mysterious media venture finally introduces itself.