For inspiration for his new horror movie, Nicolas Curcio thought back to the media of his childhood. There were shows like ‘Rocko’s Modern Life,’ where I look back and some of those Nickelodeon shows are weird and kind of disturbing. I think it’s just in the DNA.” The result is “Play House,” a tense horror feature that balances scares with an emotional through line.
In the film, Elliot (Will Harrison) is directionless after a breakup with his girlfriend (Jessica Sula), so he buys a fixer-upper house in a wild swing to prove he’s emotionally mature enough for her. Unfortunately, he finds a bag full of videocassettes in the basement featuring an unsettling kids show starring Mr. Morton (James Urbaniak) and a group of puppets who seem very frightened to be there.
As he recruits his ex and best friend (Jordan Gonzalez) to try to find out more information about the program, things get very dark very quickly. While there is a spooky atmosphere and discomforting imagery throughout, the relationship between the three main characters is central — something Curcio and his co-writer (and wife) Kirby Gladstein were comfortable taking a chance on. Kirby was always the one who said, ‘Hey, the movie’s about a relationship.
There’s all kinds of different horror movies.’ I think it’s just sticking to what you intended to do. As we went on, the cut got better and also we got more sound design in the actual horror components. Then people slowly started to say, ‘I love that you’re bringing back character-based horror.’” Luckily, many other people also understood his vision from the beginning.
Curcio had success as a screenwriting content creator, as well as scripts that made The Black List and a basketball animated comedy he wrote called “Goat” that was actually being developed by DreamWorks Animation and getting an early 2026 theatrical release. But he was eager to make something for himself. The collaboration between Austin’s annual genre gathering Fantastic Fest and indie studio Chroma allowed aspiring filmmakers a platform to pitch their ideas.
The winner would walk away with $100,000 for production, with an equally daunting and exciting ticking-clock component: The film premieres at the next year’s festival and guarantees some sort of theatrical run via Alamo Drafthouse. Curcio pitched and won last year’s inaugural competition, and then was faced with the challenge of getting his microbudget film completed in less than a year. Kirby and I, we wrote the movie together and we produced it together.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
