The television adaptation of Grady Hendrix’s Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is still happening, albeit through a different network/streamer.
We first found out that an adaptation was in the works way back in 2020, when Patrick Moran’s PKM Productions at Amazon bought rights to the book in a ten-buyer bidding war. Since then, there have been crickets about the project, though a film adaptation of Grady’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism premiered on Prime Video in 2022.
Today, however, Deadline broke the news that “a comedy series” based on Southern Book Club has moved from Amazon to HBO, and that Hendrix along with The Righteous Gemstones’ Danny McBride (pictured above in the series) and Edi Patterson are penning the adaptation.
Here’s the official synopsis of the adaptation (and the book), per Deadline:
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires follows Patricia Campbell, whose life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.
One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor’s handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in. Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.
It’s interesting that the project is described as a comedy series, as the book, while certainly funny at times, is not what I would call comedic. I can see a take that would bring it there, however, and I’m curious to see what this adaptation will be like once it makes its way to the screen.
