Ordinarily, it’s the characters in scary movies who are being haunted, but with the latest from The Ring producer, Neal Edelstein , it’s the audience’s turn. Pieces of his new film are set to emerge on viewers’ mobile devices at unpredictable times, like restless spirits returning from the grave.

Haunting Melissa is a scarily playful, thoroughly modern experiment with the media through which horror stories are delivered. The new film was made to be viewed over time, via an app on iPhone, iPad, or iPod. What’s more intriguing than the distribution method, however, is the schedule. The first installment is available on May 16, but viewers will never know when subsequent segments drop, or how long they’ll run. It’s a viewing experience designed specifically for the person who is pathologically glued to a smartphone, forever awaiting fresh intelligence to tumble forth.





“I wanted to tell a story, and I wanted to tell a ghost story, but what I didn’t want to do was take some script that I had lying around, collecting dust, or create something with a traditional three-act structure,” says Edelstein. “I wanted to tell a ghost story in a completely different way.”

Edelstein has experience with nontraditional storytelling from his frequent collaborations with pioneering mind-bender David Lynch. Together, the pair first sought out a new digital-based way to tell stories in late ’90s, when they launched DavidLynch.com, but the time (and technology) wasn’t right yet. Now, technology has caught up to the ideas Edelstein began devising years ago, and the result is Haunting Melissa.

It’s a scary movie that favors psychological horror over blood-and-guts splatter, and it’s intended for young, digital-savvy audiences. The characters in the film are addicted to their devices, just like the desired viewer. And just as these devices constantly hover around us, the titular Melissa (Kassia Warshawski) is haunted by her recently deceased mother.

Edelstein came up with the initial idea in the spring of 2011. After some initial fundraising, and the recruitment of screenwriter and former collaborator, , production started about 18 months ago.

“The story was the first spark, but it was really just holding the device and going ‘This would be awesome to tell a ghost story,’ ” the producer says. “After that, the question was, ‘How do I do this differently? I don’t want to be an app that’s just a regular movie.”