Shudder Acquires Ryan Glover’s ‘Split Rock’ Ahead of Sitges World Premiere
Shudder is heading into the badlands for Split Rock, the supernatural horror follow-up from The Strings writer-director Ryan Glover.
The horror streaming service has acquired rights to Glover’s sophomore feature in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Split Rock will make its world premiere at the 59th Sitges Film Festival on Oct. 9, followed by its North American premiere at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival on Oct. 21. The film will then make its Shudder debut on Dec. 25.
Shot on 16mm, Split Rock stars Clark Backo (Yaga, The Changeling, Venom: The Last Dance) and Drew Ray Tanner (Riverdale, Boot Camp) as Lauren and Ben, two geologists sent to investigate a strange anomaly buried deep within a remote stretch of badlands.
Their investigation uncovers something considerably older and more dangerous than an unusual geological formation.
After the team unearths an ancient force hidden within the hills, Lauren, Ben and their companions become trapped in an escalating series of horrors. The premise places Glover’s latest at the intersection of supernatural horror and isolation, with an intimate group of characters confronting something that has remained buried for reasons they are about to discover.
Olivia Luccardi (It Follows, The Deuce) and Graham Verchere (The Fall of the House of Usher, Summer of ’84) round out the principal cast.
The film marks Glover’s second feature after The Strings, his atmospheric 2020 horror film centered on a musician retreating to an isolated cottage only to encounter an increasingly unsettling presence. Split Rock reunites the filmmaker with Shudder while substantially increasing the scale — and, according to Glover, the bloodshed.
“I am very excited and thankful to be teaming up with Shudder again for the release of Split Rock, my bloodier, and far more ambitious second film,” Glover said.
“Shudder is home to the most passionate genre audience in the world, and I can’t wait for them to unearth the horrors and tragedies of Split Rock later this year.”
Shudder SVP of Acquisitions & Productions Emily Gotto pointed toward the film’s psychological tension and performances as central to what attracted the streamer to the project.
“With Split Rock, Ryan Glover has delivered a meticulously crafted world of psychological tension and haunting performances from its intimate cast,” Gotto said. “We can’t wait to share this unsettling tale with Shudder audiences.”
Brian Robertson of Low End (Cursed Films, V/H/S/Beyond, Darkest Miriam), Jefferson Moneo of Prowler Pictures (Flapjax, Welcome to Kittytown) and Krista Dzialoszynski of Observer Effect (The Strings) produced the film.
Glover, Kate Melville, Fabiola Caraza, Patrick Hackett and Daniel Futa serve as executive producers, with Joey Montenarello serving as casting director.
The acquisition was negotiated by Gotto on behalf of Shudder and Robertson on behalf of the filmmakers.
The decision to shoot Split Rock on 16mm should also give Glover’s remote landscape a distinctly tactile quality, particularly for a story built around ancient forces lurking beneath an isolated environment. Rather than positioning the wilderness as an escape, the film turns the surrounding terrain itself into the source of uncertainty.
For Glover, it also represents an opportunity to build upon the restrained supernatural atmosphere of his feature debut while pushing toward something larger and considerably more violent.
Audiences at Sitges will be the first to discover exactly what the geologists have disturbed.
Split Rock makes its world premiere Oct. 9 at the Sitges Film Festival, followed by its North American premiere Oct. 21 at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. It begins streaming Dec. 25 on Shudder.
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