Exists director Eduardo Sanchez aims to bring us topical horror tale Maulers

Last Updated on July 22, 2021

While we patiently await the October 24 VOD and limited theatrical release of his Bigfoot horror flick EXISTS, director Eduardo Sanchez is already looking ahead to his next projects and his goal is to bring us a topical horror tale with MAULERS. Sanchez, who also co-helmed the found footage classic THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as well as bringing us the chilling LOVELY MOLLY, recently spoke with our brothers-in-blood at Fangoria about MAULERS, sharing some details about what we can expect from the flick.

As opposed to the supernatural or monstrous threats of some of his earlier films, Sanchez shares that MAULERS will feature villains who are very human and very topical. Says Sanchez…

“It’s about an illegal rave that these people put on in an abandoned mall, and all the invitations are done through the Internet. You can’t bring your cell phone; it’s supposed to be like, whatever happens at this rave, stays at this rave. So everyone shows up and they’re all having fun, and then it turns out to be an elaborate trap that a militant group has built to kill a bunch of people."

Sanchez hopes to get the film in front of cameras soon, but understands the controversial aspects of the story will pose some challenges, stating…

“MAULERS is one of those kinds of scripts where we sent it out to the studios and a lot of people dug it, but they were like, ‘There’s no way our bosses are gonna let you do this.’ It’s kind of a challenging film, and we are actively looking to get it financed, and we hope to be shooting that, if not this fall, then early next spring.”

…to me, it (MAULERS) says something about the gun culture in this country, and that if we’re willing to live with these weapons all around us, we have to be ready for these horrific events—which are already happening. MAULERS is basically about the most horrific thing that could be done if someone actually thought about it and planned ahead. Like I said, a lot of people dug it, and how dark it is and how seemingly controversial it will be, but at the same time, it’s just not a studio thing; they don’t really make films like this, so we’re trying to finance it privately.”

I'm digging the idea behind MAULERS, so here's hoping Sanchez can pull together the financing to make it happen. I've thoroughly enjoyed all of his films so far and am looking forward to peeping EXISTS when it arrives on October 24. MAULERS sounds like the kind of flick that could really challenge an audience, and that's exactly the kind of horror that I like.