Attention, horror fans: Junji Ito's horror manga 'Bloodsucking Darkness' to get live-action film
Prepare to scream, horror lovers! Acclaimed horror manga artist Junji Ito is getting one of his many mangas adapted into a live-action feature film.
The work in question is titled Bloodsucking Darkness, the first of 13 nightmarish stories in Ito's Smashed vampire series.
The plot takes readers into the shoes of Nami, a young woman who had just experienced a bad breakup and begins to develop an eating disorder where she vomits blood. This only worsens when she starts to have chilling nightmares about blood coinciding with her classmate forming a creepy obsession over her health.
Variety reported that Fangoria Studios will back up the live-action adaptation of the manga. The multimedia platform company is known for specializing in horror and genre film coverage, and Bloodsucking Darkness is only the first of three projects that it plans to adapt from Ito’s Smashed series.
"Fangoria Studios is going to adapt my manga! I’m so excited to see how it will turn out. I hope I get to see the trailer in my dreams tonight," Ito said.
While the project has yet to find a director, The Haunting of Hill House writer Jeff Howard has been hired to develop the screenplay of the adaptation, with Ito serving as its producer.
“When I found out a live-action Junji Ito adaptation was going to happen, I chased after it with everything I had, because I just couldn’t live with anyone else getting there before me. The combination of fear and feelings is where I always want to be," Howard said.
Ito has been hailed as an icon of horror manga, brought about by the success of his previous works Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo. Aside from the upcoming Bloodsucking Darkness, several of his mangas have also been adapted for film and television, such as Junji Ito Collection and Junji Ito Maniac on Netflix.