Not long ago, it was announced that J.J. Abrams is executive producing a psychological horror show for Hulu based on the works of Stephen King, and that Moonlight/The Knick‘s André Holland would be playing the lead. Following that, Sissy Spacek and Jane Levy came on board. Now, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Togetherness’/every indie movie’s Melanie Lynskey will be starring in the series as well.
The series is titled Castle Rock, and it’s set in the Stephen King multiverse of the Maine town that’s ubiquitous in his work. (Incidentally, another current series takes place in Stephen King’s Maine — Spike’s The Mist.) Rock is thus an anthological mishmash “weav[ing] together characters and themes” from his works that’ve taken place in the titular small town, per THR. Indeed, it seems like they’re leaving no horrific stone unturned: a teaser trailer released in February listed It, The Shining, Hearts in Atlantis, Dolores Claiborne, Needful Things, Salem’s Lot, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Dreamcatcher, Night Shift, Misery, The Green Mile, Four Past Midnight, The Night Flier, Different Seasons, The Mangler, and Nightmares & Dreamscapes as seeming sources of material.
Lynskey is playing Molly Strand, who’s a realtor who’s down on her luck due to the fact that every house in town is a nightmare-scape. She also has a “rare medical condition,” which can’t be helping matters. Holland is playing a death row attorney named Henry. Meanwhile, Spacek will play Ruth Deaver, the adoptive mother of André Holland’s character, who’s a retired professor with distant memories that’ll be crucial to the series. Levy is playing a historian with a keen interest in Castle Rock.
Get ready to be horrified by…Maine.