A24 has unleashed the first full trailer for Slayground, the new horror thriller from Green Room and Rebel Ridge director Jeremy Saulnier.
The movie turns America’s most haunted attraction into the center of a grisly murder mystery, with Cory Michael Smith caught in the middle of a nightmare that may lead straight back to him.
The story follows “Metal Mike” Graves, a scare actor who wakes up inside the Slayground haunted attraction surrounded by the dead bodies of his coworkers. He has no memory of what happened, and a statewide manhunt soon closes in as he tries to piece together the truth.
The trailer offers a much clearer look at the film than A24’s earlier teaser, which leaned into security-camera footage and the unsettling atmosphere of a haunted house gone wrong. This time, the footage hints at a much bigger situation, with law enforcement getting involved and the mystery extending beyond the attraction itself.
“Halloween is only the beginning,” A24 teases in the new trailer.
Saulnier writes and directs Slayground, bringing together a cast that includes Smith, Chase Sui Wonders, Sophie Wilde, James Badge Dale, Stanley Simons, Stephen Root, Chris Sullivan, Young Mazino, Imogen Poots, Matty Matheson, and Macon Blair. The film also features music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
Saulnier is best known to horror fans for Green Room, his brutal 2015 thriller about a punk band trapped inside a venue controlled by neo-Nazis. He most recently directed Rebel Ridge, the 2024 Netflix action thriller starring Aaron Pierre. Slayground appears to bring him back toward the grim, violent territory that made Green Room such a standout, this time using the manufactured terror of a Halloween attraction as the setting for a real-life nightmare.
The movie was previously known under the working title October. A24’s unusual promotional campaign began with cryptic teaser footage and a fictional haunted-attraction website, keeping the actual premise under wraps until now.
The film has also drawn comparisons to McKamey Manor, the controversial real-life extreme haunted attraction in Tennessee that became infamous for its intense experiences and the extensive waiver participants were required to sign. Former participants have described experiences involving alleged physical and psychological abuse, claims that helped fuel public scrutiny and a Hulu documentary about the attraction. A24 has not confirmed that McKamey Manor inspired Slayground, so for now the connection remains speculation. Still, the comparison makes sense: both tap into the unsettling idea of paying to be terrified, only for the experience to cross a line between staged horror and something far more disturbing.
Slayground opens in theaters on January 29, 2027. Watch the official trailer above.
