‘Night of the Reaper’ Slashes Its Way to Shudder This September

Shudder has unveiled the trailer and poster for Night of the Reaper, the latest feature from Canadian filmmaker Brandon Christensen. Best known for Still/Born, Z, Superhost and The Puppetman, Christensen once again returns to his fascination with format-driven horror, this time crafting a Halloween-set slasher with an added layer of VHS-inflected menace. The film will launch on the platform on 19 September.

Set in a quiet American suburb in the mid-1980s, the story follows college student Deena, played by Summer H. Howell (Hunter Hunter, Cult of Chucky), who reluctantly agrees to a last-minute babysitting job upon returning home. What begins as an ordinary night shifts into something more sinister when the local sheriff, portrayed by Ryan Robbins (Apollo 18, The Thicket), receives a cryptic package. Its contents spark a scavenger hunt that draws both him and Deena into the path of a masked killer known only as the Reaper.

The cast also includes Jessica Clement (Gen V, Dream Scenario) and Keegan Connor Tracy (Final Destination 2, Z). Together, the characters navigate an escalating chain of events that entwines small-town folklore, missing women, and a figure whose mask becomes an unsettling symbol of the town’s unspoken fears.

Christensen co-wrote the film with his brother, Ryan Christensen, developing the idea during production on Superhost. Both describe Night of the Reaper as a “love letter” to 1980s horror, while consciously avoiding a straightforward rehash of the babysitter-in-peril format popularised in that decade. Among the director’s cited influences are Ti West’s House of the Devil and Fred Walton’s When a Stranger Calls.

True to Christensen’s approach, Night of the Reaper introduces another structural device: the use of VHS footage within the story itself. The director explains that just as Still/Born employed baby monitors and Z relied on childhood videotapes, here the 1980s setting allows the integration of analogue recordings that expand the mythology and inject unnerving, vignette-like glimpses into the unfolding mystery.

Produced by Not The Funeral Home, Night of the Reaper blends nostalgia with a more experimental edge. Beyond its Halloween backdrop, Christensen highlights how the killer’s mask was conceived not only as a striking design but as recurring iconography embedded within the small town itself, serving as both a warning and a reminder of unfinished terror.

Don’t miss Night of the Reaper when it becomes available to stream exclusively on Shudder from 19 September 2025.

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