Kid Cudi's New Horror Movie Is Officially in Production With Barbie Ferreira [Exclusive]

Multi-hyphenate recording artist Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi made his acting debut 16 years ago with the HBO dramedy series How to Make It in America, but he has his eyes set on much more. While he's built a solid resume of roles in everything from Ti West's acclaimed horror X to Adam McKay's satirical Don't Look Up, he's never stopped branching out as a creative. Most notably, he penned and starred in the ambitious adult-animated musical rom-com series Entergalactic, which won an Emmy for character design, and executive-produced the rest of West's X trilogy. It's only natural, then, that he'd want to try his hand at directing.

Mescudi's not going small with his directorial ambition either. Not only does he have his directorial debut, Doe, which he'll also star in, set for next year, but he's also working on a horror film titled Wrong Number, pairing him with Euphoria alum Barbie Ferreira. Production is currently underway, and he's bringing some real experience to the table there, having seen behind-the-scenes of West's hits and previously directing his own music videos. However, jumping behind the camera of a feature with a script he wrote himself is an entirely different challenge that he's never faced.

With the premiere of his new film Pathetic Fallacy at Fantastic Fest, Collider's Perri Nemiroff got the chance to ask about his films and the overall experience of helming a project on a much bigger scale than he's used to. Rather than being intimidated by it, actually doing it was a confidence builder that showed him he can make anything he writes into reality. "I've directed music videos before, right? And I've written treatments," he said. "But the fact that this is the first script that I wrote, that I actually made. So for me, it was like, 'Holy shit, I can do this. I can conceive something in my mind, and I can make it so.'" Getting Doe out of the way has him wanting to do so much more after he's done filming Wrong Number, including another idea that he's planning to get rolling on very soon.

"I'm literally in production on my second film right now, Wrong Number, and I saw that I could do it, so now I'm like, 'Oh, I'm going to do more of it,' and I'm just writing scripts all the time. Like, I already have two other scripts. One of them I'm going to shoot next year in March. I want to be as prolific with directing and writing as I am with movies or with music, you know?"

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring

Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.

😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)

🧸Chucky(Child's Play)

📞Scream(Ghostface)

🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)

FIND YOUR NIGHTMARE →

01

Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.

ASomebody falling asleep when they really should not. BA toy that has moved, and nobody touched it. CA phone ringing in an empty house. DA child talking to somebody who is not there.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.

AI am exhausted and my mind is playing tricks on me. BSomething in this room is not where I left it. CSomebody is in here with me. DThis house has never felt entirely right.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.

ANever fall asleep. BNever leave it out of your sight. CNever answer the phone. DNever go down to the basement.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.

AConvince myself I imagined the whole thing. BTell someone, and brace for them not believing me. CWork out which person I know could be behind it. DGet everybody in the house into one room.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.

AFine during. Wide awake at two in the morning. BShouting at the screen that nobody is listening. CCalling the twist out loud before it lands. DThrough my fingers, holding on to something.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.

AFall asleep in a room I have never been in before. BKeep an old doll on the shelf facing my bed. CAnswer every unknown number that calls after midnight. DSpend one night alone in a house with a history.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.

ANot wanting to turn the bedroom light off. BNot trusting one particular object in my house. CLooking twice at people I have known for years. DFeeling like something came home with me.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.

AThat I am still asleep, and it knows it. BThat the thing nobody believed me about is here. CThat somebody with a key is downstairs. DThat something is in the doorway, watching us sleep.

REVEAL MY NIGHTMARE →

The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.

Elm Street

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Chucky

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Scream

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

The Conjuring

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Kid Cudi Has the Acting Bug and His Friends Are Helping Him Embrace It

Mescudi didn't exactly hide that he's been bitten by the directing bug, but his Pathetic Fallacy co-star, Jessica Rothe, only drove home how passionate he is about it. "This man puts the reps in. That’s all I can say. He really puts the reps in." It's not often that a newcomer director, even one who's been in the industry as long as Mescudi, immediately wants to launch into another film the second the first is finished. Yet, he credited Mark Webber, his friend, Goodbye World co-star, and The Ever After director, for helping him realize those filmmaking ambitions to their fullest extent with Doe and Wrong Number and encouraging him.

"He helped me put it together, and he was the first one that was like, 'Dude, these are really good scripts. We can make these for a price. We can find people.' And for me, like for Doe, me and my manager paid for that movie. We financed it ourselves. It only cost me $300,000, and we shot for nine days in L.A., guerrilla-style, and that was cool, man."

Another reassurance along Mescudi's creative journey was "knowing that I got Karina Manashil, who's the president of Mad Solar. She's reading my scripts. I give her everything I write, and she's coming back like, 'Yo, this is f---ing good.'" Manashil has been a frequent partner of the Grammy winner, producing the aforementioned X films, as well as Entergalactic and, most recently, Pathetic Fallacy. As a former agent at William Morris Endeavor (WME), she's also pored over "tens of thousands of scripts" over the years, making any compliment from her hit all the harder for Mescudi. "And for her to tell me, 'No, there's something here. You have to make this,' it just gives me something and lets me know that I have something here, you know? I just need to keep focus."

Lest anyone believe Mescudi is leaving his music career behind for directing, he assures that isn't about to happen. However, the "Pursuit of Happiness" artist acknowledges that exploring other fields is important to him as he grows older and seeks other ways to tap into his creativity. "Also, too, with music, I'm not saying I'm going to retire because I've already been in this spot like two or three times in my career, and people are like, 'Didn’t you say you were going to quit music?' I've always had these moments, and whatever, but I do know that I've been really active with music throughout the years, and I do want to start shifting as I'm getting older now to doing other things, and I really want writing and directing to be that thing," he concluded. Acting is also a field where he still has a few itches to scratch and, for now, he's happy to use his films as opportunities to play in the roles he wants to experiment with, especially when fans who followed his music career have continued to support his other endeavors.

"Right now, I'm starring in all the stuff I'm doing because I have things I want to do as an actor, but it's going to get to a point where I'm not going to want to star in my shit. I'm just going to want to direct and write and produce. So, it's just nice seeing the excitement, people seeing the Deadline articles, and seeing the fans rave about it and say, 'I can't wait to see this!' That's dope, man. I think people are expecting dope shit because I produce dope shit. So, it's good."

What Is 'Pathetic Fallacy' About?

Image via Fantastic Fest

Before his first film, Mescudi is crossing off another first with his first-ever lead role in Pathetic Fallacy. The cosmic horror thriller casts him as Asher, a widower crushed by his beloved wife's death from cancer until he learns of a portal to another universe in a small mountain town. This discovery gives him the chance to reconnect with her against all odds, but there's also a murderer on the loose, talking forest creatures, and one very sick dive bar to navigate en route to doing what he thought impossible. However, cheating death to bring the one he loves back may have a terrible cost. Daniel Isn't Real's Adam Egypt Mortimer directs the film from a script by Ant-Man & the Wasp and Transformers One duo Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, with Travis Fimmel, Jess Brown, and Natasha Lyonne also starring.

There is no release date for Pathetic Fallacy beyond its Fantastic Fest premiere. Stay tuned here at Collider for more coverage of the genre event throughout the week and more on Mescuide's directorial efforts.

Cast

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  Richard Harmon

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  Jess Brown

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• Amitai Marmorstein

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• Doralynn Mui

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