Matthew Lillard has been cast in Alexandra Magistro’s directorial debut, the body horror movie Rot. More on the project below.
Horror films are doing well at the moment, and 2026 has brought along some great new titles with more still on the horizon. Looking even further into the feature, a new project has just entered the picture, and our interest has certainly been piqued.
Deadline reports that the VP of Creative at Mike Flanagan’s Red Room Pictures, Alexandra Magistro, is to make her feature directorial debut with Rot, a film based on a 2024 Black List script by Geo Bradley.
Matthew Lillard, Cooper Koch and Amber Midthunder have been cast in the film, which is described as “Repulsion by way of Cronenberg”. Something tells us this could get very gnarly, in the best way possible.
There’s no official logline for Rot, but according to Deadline, the film “follows an antisocial man suffering from obsessive compulsions who is haunted by the death of his hoarder mother. The man takes on work as a trauma cleaner in hopes of facing his past, but the job soon begins to infest and unravel his mental state.”
Rot will bring together many Flanagan collaborators and horror movie regulars. Midthunder and Lillard will both be seen in Flanagan’s new adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie, hitting Prime Video in October. Magistro has been working with Flanagan since 2019’s Doctor Sleep, moving to producing for The Fall Of The House Of The Usher, The Life Of Chuck (which also had a role for Lillard) and Flanagan’s upcoming The Exorcist: Martyrs. She also has a writing credit for one episode of Carrie.
The 2020s have been an excellent time for body horror films. Julia Ducournau’s Titane, which featured a woman being impregnated by a car, won the coveted Palme D’Or, Demi Moore earned an Oscar nomination for her role in Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance and Brandon Cronenberg has been following in his father’s footsteps with Possessor and Infinity Pool.
Hopefully Rot will reach the pure nastiness of those films. We have our fingers crossed and will keep you updated on the film’s progress.
