Last year, we reported on Grady Hendrix’s novel Horrorstör coming to television. Now, it’s getting even more official! Fox has made a put pilot commitment to the hourlong supernatural dramedy, adapted by Josh Schwartz (creator of The O.C.) and Mike Vukadinovich (featured on the 2014 Black List for his screenplay The Secret Ingredients of Rocket Cola).
A haunted furniture-goods store, social commentary on living out your weirdest and most desperate fantasies, and more than one night stuck in the creepy ORSK… yep, sounds like the makings of a supernatural dramedy! And as Deadline points out, the story will center on Amy, a 26-year-old slacker struggling to maintain both sobriety and her odd job at ORSK.
You can read an excerpt from Horrorstör—complete with the nifty diagrams that tie it all together—and here’s the full synopsis:
Something strange is happening at the Orsk furniture superstore in Columbus, Ohio. Every morning, employees arrive to find broken Kjerring wardrobes, shattered Brooka glassware, and vandalized Liripip sofa beds—clearly, someone or something is up to no good. To unravel the mystery, five young employees volunteer for a long dusk-till-dawn shift—and they encounter horrors that defy imagination. Along the way, author Grady Hendrix infuses sly social commentary on the nature of work in the new twenty-first century economy.
A traditional haunted house story in a contemporary setting (and full of current fears), Horrorstör comes conveniently packaged in the form of a retail catalog, complete with illustrations of ready-to-assemble furniture and other, more sinister accessories. We promise you’ve never seen anything quite like it!
Let’s not forget that we have Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind scribe Charlie Kaufman to thank for bringing Horrorstör to the attention of Schwartz and Gail Berman in the first place. He’ll be executive-producing the series with them plus David Borgenicht, CEO of Quirk Books.
