Image : Quirk Books

Ay, it’s your birthday! Or it might as well be, if you’re a fan of Happy Death Day and/or My Best Friend’s Exorcism. Grady Hendrix’s throwback horror novel has been optioned for the big screen by Endeavor Content, the folks behind the insanely good Killing Eve. And, as THR reports, Happy Death Day’s Christopher Landon is producing the adaptation, which he might also direct from a script by Awkward.’s Jenna Lamia.


Released in 2016, Hendrix’s book is set in 1988 and follows teen best friends Abby and Gretchen, whose relationship is put to the test after a fateful night of skinny-dipping. Gretchen soon begins acting very strange, and Abby increasingly believes that her best bud has been possessed by a demon. As teased by the book’s official synopsis, “the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?”

With its clever and thoughtful genre spin on female friendship, My Best Friend’s Exorcism has been favorably compared to films like the wildly underrated Jennifer’s Body and Heathers (of course). The pairing of Hendrix —who also wrote the excellent Paperbacks From Hell—with the folks behind the delightful Happy Death Day should be the perfect deranged marriage. And My Best Friend’s Exorcism is just the start of Hendrix’s horror takeover: He wrote the screenplay for the upcoming film Satanic Panic—which is being produced by Fangoria and just wrapped shooting—and his novel Horrorstör, about a haunted IKEA-esque furniture store, is being turned into a TV series by The O.C.’s Josh Schwartz.