HBO Max wants to make a TV series based on the horror novel The Final Girl Support Group by the best-selling writer Grady Hendrix. According to BloodyDisgusting, the project will be produced by, among others, Barbara and Andy Muschietti (It, It: Chapter Two) and Charlize Theron’s Denver & Delilah Films. Andy Muschietti will also direct the pilot episode.
This is quite an accomplishment for Hendrix, whose novel only came out this July. However, its premise does practically sell itself: The Final Girl Support Group is a story about a therapeutic support group for “final girls” – women who all survived brutal massacres like those depicted in horror movies such as Halloween and Friday the 13th. After one of them misses a regular meeting, the rest quickly realizes they are once again targets of a killer.
Over the last several years, writer Grady Hendrix made a name for himself with a series of frequently funny, occasionally terrifying horror novels mixing 1980s horror tropes with distinctly 21st-century meta-narrative sensibilities. He first drew attention with his 2014 novel Horrorstör, set in a haunted IKEA-like superstore. After Horrorstör came My Best Friend’s Exorcism, a mix of 1980s teen romance with William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Last year, Hendrix published The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, featuring suburban housewives facing a vampire. So far, all of these have been optioned for either TV shows or movies.
