There are two important reasons why Ryan Murphy’s bloody new series setting its release date is important for psychological-gore fans. The first is that it’s Bret Easton Ellis’s story, and his horror stories usually come dressed as money, taste, youth, parties, beautiful people, expensive rooms, and the awful feeling that everyone is performing normality a little too well. The second is that while the film is helmed by Max Winkler, the development of it all and exec-producing credit go to Murphy, who is the brains behind American Horror Story.
When Ellis’s writing and Murphy’s work are combined, you kind of get a modern American Psycho. And the synopsis of the upcoming Murphy film basically tells that it is “a dark, coming-of-age horror thriller set in Los Angeles in 1981 and follows a group of privileged prep school seniors, whose reality is shattered by a serial killer.” That’s almost American Psycho, but instead of the corporate world, it’s the world of school seniors.
The series is The Shards, and it premieres August 5 on FX and Hulu, with international streaming through Disney+. Igby Rigney stars as a 17-year-old version of Ellis, while Homer Gere plays Robert Mallory. The cast also includes Kaia Gerber, Hayes Warner, Graham Campbell, Wes Bentley, Evan Rachel Wood, and Jordan Roth. Ellis’ novel first appeared as a serialized audiobook before its 2023 publication, and now Wrinkler and Murphy, among others, get to turn it into a full television nightmare about adolescence, class, beauty, and blood in Reagan-era Los Angeles.
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Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
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🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
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01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
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02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
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03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
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04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
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05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
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06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
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07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
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08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
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Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
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Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
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He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
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But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
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You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
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The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
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You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
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‘The Shards’ Has a Nuanced Hook Rather Than a Simple-Rich-Kids-in-Danger Thriller
The story of The Shards goes back to Ellis’ own teenage mythology, taking place in 1981 Los Angeles at an elite prep school, where wealthy seniors are already drowning in jealousy, obsession, image, and sexual tension before the murder angle fully takes over. So the show might have some of those Netflix’s Elite-ish vibes in there too. Then Robert Mallory (Homer Gere) shows up, and his arrival happens to coincide with the terror caused by a serial killer known as The Trawler. That is where the series gets its classic Ellis pressure.
The Shards is coming to FX and Hulu starting August 5, 2026. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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