You author Caroline Kepnes is stepping behind the camera for the first time with The Attentionist, a psychological thriller project based on her own “incredibly creepy” short story, which originally appeared in Tor Nightfire’s horror anthology Dark Stars. Kepnes, whose first You novel was recently named one of the best thrillers of the 21st century by the New York Times, will write and direct The Attentionist.
The eight-episode first season of this premium short-form project will be set in the ‘90s in a Cape Cod neighborhood where year-round working locals live alongside part-time summer residents. The story follows an awkward 14-year-old named Maeve and her older sister. As the girls ache for a way into the glittering world of the waterfront elite, a secret phone romance with a boy from the local boat club finally makes that dream feel possible. But when the voice on the line begins to reveal something monstrous, Maeve doesn’t hang up, drawing her family deeper into the dark.
According to Variety, the series will launch on YouTube “as part of a significant slate effort from a media venture to be announced in the coming days.”
“Sometimes it feels like a lakeside slasher, and sometimes it feels like a boy-meets-girl oceanside summer romance,” Kepnes told 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.”
The Attentionist is produced by Mark Roberts of Roberts Media and Lorena David. The project will shoot on location in Cape Cod and is currently casting key roles.
“During our first scouting trip on the Cape for The Attentionist, I found out You made the New York Times best thrillers list while at one of my favorite local haunts with the production team. It feels like my mom is looking down on all of it and smiling, my dad too,” said Kepnes, whose late parents Monica and Harold Kepnes were fixtures in the seaside haven. “And this is one of those sick short stories that really disturbed her, so I hope they have YouTube in heaven.”
Kepnes wrote about serial killer Joe Goldberg in a series of five novels, starting with You, which also spawned the five-season Netflix series starring Penn Badgley, although the show drifted away from Kepnes’ stories. Kepnes has also worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and wrote for television, including the shows 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She received a Shirley Jackson Award nomination for her short story Room 24, which was published in The End of the World as We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand.
For fans of You and psychological horror, The Attentionist is an intriguing new chapter for Kepnes, putting the author directly in control of a story that combines creepy horror, small-town family drama, and a sinister summer romance. Does this project sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The post Caroline Kepnes, author of You, to make directorial debut with thriller series The Attentionist appeared first on JoBlo.
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