After becoming a festival darling and Shudder streaming favorite with the knockout fantasy-horrorTigers Are Not Afraid, filmmakerIssa Lopezis heading to Blumhouse for a new supernatural-tinged tale of societal woes – this time, mass hysteria!
Lopez is set to write and directOur Lady of Tears, a film adaptation ofDaniel Hernandez’s article, “The Haunting of Girlstown,” which was published by Epic Magazine and Vox. Per the press release, the film focuses on “a mass hysteria epidemic with supernatural roots, that in 2007 spread through Villa de las Niñas, an all girls, Catholic boarding school in the outskirts of Mexico City. The school recruited and isolated socially neglected girls coming from families living in extreme poverty and in remote areas of Mexico.”
“The moment I read the Epic article, I knew I wanted to tell this story. I myself attended a Catholic school in Mexico City. I grew up on a steady diet of supernatural visitations and miracles, and of the real life horrors that young girls who grow up in poverty face every day in Mexico, and around the world. Having the chance to tell that story with Jason [Blum] and his team, producers of such socially incisive genre classics likeGet Out, and of so many true horror gems, is a huge privilege. I couldn’t be more excited about this movie,” López said about the project.
“The Blumhouse team was enthralled by the original article and Daniel’s deep reporting around such a terrifying and heartbreaking story. Ever since I first watchedTiger’s Are Not Afraid, I have wanted to find a project to collaborate on with Issa and I knew this was a perfect fit. I can’t wait for audiences to see her take on this material,” saidJason Blum, Blumhouse co-founder and CEO.
“Epic spent years tracking down former students, government officials and teachers to try to understand what happened at Girlstown. We learned that isolation can protect us from physical threats but our internal demons follow us wherever we go,” said Joshua Davis, co-founder, Epic.
And dang if this doesn’t all sound like aperfectfit. López’sTigers Are Not Afraidgracefully laced an aching, heartfelt, and socially-minded story into a horrific fairy tale, and this material offers her not only a meat, timely subject to tackle, but a perfect home for it. While Blumhouse is still keeping their franchises alive with mega-hits like theInsidiousandHalloweenfilms, they’ve also increasingly become a home to what they’ve been known to call “social thrillers,” original ideas likeJordan Peele’sGet Out, and more recently, the controversial horror-comedyThe HuntandLeigh Whannell’s updated take onThe Invisible Man.
Elsewhere, López has been developing a werewolf Western withGuillermo Del Toro, and when she recently stopped by Collider’s horror podcastThe Witching Hourto celebrate the home video release ofTigers Are Not Afraid, the filmmaker teased their “dark, violent, and fun” take on the beloved genres. You cancheck out all the detail she shared here, and stay tuned for more on both projects as they develop.
