Lifetime developing Shakespearean horror anthology A Midsummer’s Nightmare

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Something's rotten in the state of Lifetime. The network has really been pumping out their horror content lately. And just when it seemed like remaking MOTHER, MAY I SLEEP WITH DANGER? as a lesbian vampire movie was the craziest idea, they were working on, along comes Midsummer Nightmare, a series that is currently in development.

The plan is for Midsummer Nightmare to become a Shakespearean anthology horror series, with each season presenting a horrific spin on a different Shakespeare play. Honestly, there's a lot of material to work with here. "Titus Andronicus" is a brutally gory tale that culminates in a man baking his enemy's sons into pies and feeding them to her, then stabbing his daughter to death. "Macbeth" is all about witchery and bloody murder. And "Hamlet" opens with a ghostly visitation, for crying out loud. 

It worked well enough for Vincent Price in THEATRE OF BLOOD (a wholly underrated flick where a Shakespearean actor murders his critics in Shakespeare-inspired ways), but my worry would be that they turn it into a Once Upon a Time-type, watered-down trifle with hot teens and wooden dialogue.

The Anthony Jaswinski-penned (KRISTY, THE SHALLOWS) first season based on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" would be

a story that finds two young lovers on a getaway in the woods who wind up in a struggle to survive as friends arrive to lure them home.

So basically Puck is a will-o'-the-wisp type forest monster? Honestly, it could be worse. More on this story as it breaks!