Horrorstör, the brilliantly titled novel by Grady Hendrix about an insidious Scandinavian-ish furniture megastore in Cleveland, is being made into a put pilot (meaning the network is obligated to air it) for Fox by The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz.
Backtracking a bit, this all allegedly began when Eternal Sunshine/Being John Malkovich writer Charlie Kaufman (who’s serving as an executive producer on the series) introduced the book to former Fox entertainment president, Gail Berman, whose Fox co-venture The Jackal Group thereafter acquired rights to it late last year. It was Berman who’d given the go-ahead to The O.C. 12 years ago, and she enlisted Schwartz to write Horrorstör, along with screenwriter Michael Vukadinovich.
The hourlong comedy/drama/furniture-horror story follows a certain 26-year-old named Amy who begins working at the horrific stör in question, called ORSK and quite evidently parodying IKEA. (Random House’s description of the novel calls it “a traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting,” and notes that it “comes packaged in the form of a glossy mail order catalog, complete with product illustrations, a home delivery order form, and a map of Orsk’s labyrinthine showroom.”) Amy has just sobered up, and is feeling like everything’s improving, until, according to Deadline, she realizes “the store actually preys upon its customers’ desires to a supernatural degree, selling products that make their wishes and fantasies come true in unexpected and insidious ways.”
The New York Post said — seemingly tepidly but also tellingly — of the novel, “If you’ve ever been frustrated trying to put together furniture from IKEA, you’ll get a laugh out of Hendrix’s spoof mystery.”