Kat Candler to direct Splitfoot, about New York’s first haunted house

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Back in July of 2015, we shared the news that Fox Searchlight and Condé Nast Entertainment were teaming up for a feature adaptation of the two-part article Voices Through the Trumpet, which was written by Carl Carmer and published in The New Yorker in 1936. At the time, J.T. Petty was writing the screenplay. Two years later, it was announced that Antonio Campos would be directing the film – titled SPLITFOOT – and rewriting the script. Now it's been almost four years since this project was first put into motion and it's time for some more news.

Campos has departed SPLITFOOT since the last update we heard, and Kat Candler has signed on to be his replacement. Candler will be directing the film and writing another draft of the script. Candler's previous credits include the 2014 drama HELLION and episodes of 12 Monkeys, 13 Reasons Why, and Queen Sugar. She also served as showrunner on the third season of Queen Sugar.

Carmer's Voices Through the Trumpet article told the story of the first documented haunted house in upstate New York. Candler's film will follow 

a jaded reporter who, after having a disturbing encounter that raises the prospect that his dead son may be trying to make contact from the afterlife, travels to upstate New York to a remote town considered the mecca of the American spiritual/occultist movement. As the reporter’s cynicism gives way to the hope of reuniting with his son, he becomes the target of various forces attempting to manipulate him, including one that is much more dangerous than the dead.

SPLITFOOT is being produced by David Greenbaum and Condé Nast's Jeremy Steckler. DanTram Nguyen is overseeing the project for Fox Searchlight.

If all goes well, maybe we'll be hearing more about SPLITFOOT before another two years passes.