GOOD BOY Director Ben Leonberg Set to Helm Horror Film ANKLE SNATCHER for Sony Pictures

There’s a new horror project creeping its way into development, and it’s bringing some serious nightmare fuel with it. Ben Leonberg, the filmmaker behind last year’s Good Boy, has officially signed on to direct Ankle Snatcher for Sony Pictures.

The film is based on a chilling short story from bestselling horror author Grady Hendrix, and it sounds like the kind of monster story that I’d enjoy!

The short story that the film is based on centers on a man haunted by the childhood trauma of his mother’s murder, which his father blamed on a boogeyman lurking under the bed. As he grows older, he’s forced to confront a horrifying possibility that the creature might actually be real.

Leonberg isn’t just directing. He’s also reworking the script alongside his writing partner Alex Cannon, building on Hendrix’s original adaptation.

Hendrix originally released Ankle Snatcher in September 2023 as part of a Creature Feature collection from Amazon Original Stories, and it clearly left an impression strong enough to make the leap to the big screen.

On the production side, the film has a solid team backing it. Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, and Tony Shaw are producing for Escape Artists, with Hendrix and Adam Goldworm producing for Aperture Entertainment.

Leonberg, meanwhile, is quickly carving out a place for himself in the horror space. His debut feature Good Boy took a familiar haunted house setup and flipped it on its head by telling the story through the eyes of a family dog.

It was a clever and surprisingly emotional take on the genre that caught attention after its SXSW premiere and led to a competitive acquisition by IFC/Shudder for English-speaking territories.

The film connected with audiences and critics, and it holds a 90% critic score and an 81% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, and it brought Leonberg an Independent Spirit Award nomination, a spot on the National Board of Review’s Top Ten Independent Films list, and a string of festival awards. If you missed it in theaters, it’s set to hit Hulu on April 25.

With Ankle Snatcher, Leonberg is stepping into a darker, more traditional horror lane, but if Good Boy is any indication, hopefully he delivers another interesting and unique horror story. The concept taps into a very primal fear, and this could turn into something seriously creepy.