Back in February of 2020, which was two months before author Grady Hendrix’s novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires (pick up a copy HERE) was even published, it was announced that a PKM Productions, which had a deal with Amazon Studios, had secured the adaptation rights. But apparently PKM Productions just couldn’t get The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires off the ground at Amazon, so now Deadline reports that the project has moved over to HBO, where a series adaptation of Hendrix’s novel is being developed by Rough House Pictures. Hendrix is writing the adaptation with The Righteous Gemstones duo Danny McBride and Edi Patterson. Best known for his work in comedy, McBride previously earned horror writing credits on Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills, Halloween Ends, and The Exorcist: Believer.
Hendrix, McBride, and Patterson are executive producing the show with Brandon James. Quirk Books, which published the novel, also receives an executive producing credit.
Described as “Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula,” The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is set in 1990s Charleston, South Carolina and tells the following story: Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to kiss her good-bye in the morning, her kids are wrapped up in their own lives, and she’s always a step behind on thank-you notes and endless chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and suspenseful fiction. This predictable pattern is upended when Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor’s handsome relative, James Harris, into her life. Sensitive and well-read, James makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in twenty years. But there’s something… off… and then Patricia’s senile mother-in-law insists she knew him back when she was a girl. When local children go missing, Patricia has reason to believe that James may be more Bundy than Beatnik. But once she and the book club members investigate further, the true monster emerges — and he’s far more terrifying than any serial killer they’ve ever read about.
What do you think of Grady Hendrix teaming up with Danny McBride and Edi Patterson to make a The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires TV series for HBO? Let us know by leaving a comment below – and if you have read the novel, let us know what you thought of it.
