Over the last few years, Shudder has quietly become one of the most underrated streaming services around. The AMC Network’s horror-centric service has produced some of the most memorable and creative scares in recent memory. Shudder has had a great 2022 so far and the service just found its next film to distill fear in the hearts of its audience.
The streamer has acquired Glorious from director Rebekah McKendry. The horror film was written by Todd Rigney, Joshua Hull, and David Ian McKendry and stars Ryan Kwanten and J.K. Simmons. Glorious was an official Fantasia International Film Festival selection, and it will premiere on Shudder on Thursday, August 18.
In the film Kwanten plays a young man whose life spirals out of control after a bad breakup. “His situation worsens after he finds himself locked inside a rest stop bathroom with a mysterious figure (Simmons) speaking to him from an adjacent stall. As he tries to escape, he realizes he is an unwilling player in a situation bigger and more terrible than he could have imagined.” When talking about the film, general manager of Shudder Craig Engler expressed his excitement. “With Glorious, Rebekah brings Lovecraftian horror to a place it’s never been seen before: a rest stop men’s room.” Engler continued on praising McKendry saying, “She and her all-star cast have created an inventive and original cosmic horror that manages to be both darkly hilarious and profoundly personal.”
McKendry added to that saying, “For years, I had been searching for a project that would let me show my preferred artistic style - that would let me be absurdist, sardonic, transgressive, and weird. And Glorious gets really f’n weird.” She finished by saying, “As a diehard horror fan, I’m thrilled Glorious has found a home at Shudder, and I know Shudder fans will find something unique, wild, and thought-provoking lurking inside our rural rest stop bathroom.”
From all accounts this sounds like a crazy film that is right up Shudder’s Alley. The way both Mckendry and Engler talked about it only adds to the intrigue. The concept of a guy getting locked in a rest-stop bathroom is scary enough. However, when you add in the personal trauma and the Lovecraftian elements, that will get most genre fans' attention. Not to mention Simmons' involvement in this film sounds really compelling.
Shudder has had a ton of amazing exclusives to come out in the last few years. Revenge, Violation, They Live in the Grey, La Llorona, Mandy, Night’s End, and PG: Psycho Goreman have been some of the best modern horror films. They even have experience with Lovecraftian-type horror as the streamer released an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Color Out of Space starring Nicolas Cage in 2020. That gruesome body horror nightmare was extremely underrated and is highly recommended for anyone interested in Glorious. Shudder has really cared about pushing the horror genre forward and, even when they release a bad film, their originals are always interesting in at least one regard. It is going to be exciting to see what Glorious brings to the streamers terrifying library of content. Given the new image of Kwanten's character accompanying this announcement that sees the actor in pain on the bathroom floor drenched in Lovecraftian shades of purple, horror fans are in for a gnarly treat.
Glorious will release on Shudder August 18, 2022. Until then, you can subscribe to Shudder and catch up on all their gleeful madness now.