Jane Schoenbrun has always had a knack for capturing the surreal horrors in cinema. Their most well-known take on the genre, I Saw the TV Glow, saw the director exploring body dysmorphia, isolation, and the difficult side of the trans experience, all against the backdrop of a haunted TV show called The Pink Opaque. Now, the director enters the world of the surreal once again with their latest project: Netflix’s adaptation of Charles Burns’ cult classic horror graphic novel series, Black Hole.
The news went public on October 23 after Netflix won a competitive bidding war for the project. Burns’ series, which was released in 12 issues between 1995 and 2005, tells the story of a horrifying STI that spreads among teenagers and turns them into mutants. The series switches between the perspectives of Chris, a popular girl who finds herself infected with the virus, and Keith, the local stoner who’s in love with her. After discovering that she’s caught the disease, Chris goes to live in the woods with the other mutants; however, things take an even darker turn when she realizes that a serial killer is taking them out one by one.
Black Hole has gone through several talks of adaptations before finally landing with Schoenbrun and Netflix. Previously, directors such as David Fincher (Seven), Alexandra Aja (The Hills Have Eyes), and Rick Famuyiwa (Dope) had all been attached to different takes on the project, but nothing came to fruition.
