Two of Europe’s big talents, one new and one distinctly a bit more seasoned, are teaming up to give us a new top-notch thriller. Juan Antonio Bayona really emerged as a class director with his ghost story “The Orphanage” last year, and he’s set to follow up his first major film with another chilling take, this time on a slightly more overt scale. Equally good news for horror fans is that the producer from The Orphanage, the visual aesthete Guillermo Del Toro, is back with Bayona for more. Together they will look to create another great horror film that we can all marvel at.

Before fans of Juan Antonio Bayona or Guillermo Del Toro begin to froth at the mouth, there is nothing malicious in either of these directors, or in their love for Hollywood and making good films. They are however both going to be collaborating on some level on a new film, titled Haters. Hence the term ‘Hollywood’s biggest Haters’ simply implying a top-level project of the finest quality. Haters is going to be based on the novel ‘Hater’ written by David Moody. The story itself revolves around the sudden breakdown of social norms in a sense, where people begin to randomly commit horribly violent crimes upon one another without any real explanation. The violence begins to really tear at the very fabric of society, as any member can suddenly become a volatile killer who knows no limits to his brutality. It is a story of an apocalypse in the making, where your friends and closest allies might be the ones who kill you in a fit of brutal violent rage.

For those who are familiar with David Moody, the apocalyptic setting, the murder, pandemonium and chaos, are all familiar themes that he’s dealt with in the past. He’s famous for his work entitled “Autumn” which is a post-apocalyptic novel dealing with zombies, and again with the deterioration of society into anarchy and death. The fact that “Hater” has become a film is great news for all fans of films that unleash panic upon our normally somewhat restrictive society, and David Moody is a master of crafting such stories. The screenplay itself will be written by Glen Mazzara, he who writes for the new TV-series ‘Crash.’ Although with such excellent source material, it should be no problem making a good film out of this.

Director Bayona and Producer Del Toro have no doubt got themselves a bona fide hit in this film, a potential horror film of the year in some peoples books. Personally, I think Del Toro could probably paint a desert into a beautiful picture, and Bayona has shown some serious directing chops even this early in his directing career. The only real concern is the fact that it will be Bayona’s first foree into an English speaking film, rather than his native Spanish. Which is why it is reassuring that Guillermo Del Toro will be there alongside him to guide him and help him out when he needs to, and to lend some good advice to the aspiring director. As more news about ‘Haters’ comes out, we’ll bring it to you. For now we can hopefully see that we’ve whet your palette for some quality post apocalyptic horror.

As a minor point, some are saying that this might well be a pseudo-remake of The Happening, that hapless environmentally fuelled film by M. Night Shyamalan. I can reassure all critics right now that Bayona has no interest in such a project, this is a far more inspiring story where it is man against his own friends, not nature taking on man, and above all, there will be violence. There will be savagery. There will be Barbarism. And there will be Hatred. Serious, unfiltered, unadulterated hatred on an epic scale. Keep an eye out for ‘Haters’