Before stepping into the DCEU to direct Shazam!, David F. Sandberg made his way into Hollywood with a series of horror shorts with his wife, Lotta Losten. Those shorts caught the eye of James Wan, who produced Sandberg’s first big film, Lights Out. The film made $148.9 million at the box office off a budget of just $4.9 million. That’s a huge success.
Now, after returning to the genre with 2025’s Until Dawn (an adaptation of the game of the same name), it seems the director has decided to stay in (or return to) his lane. His next project, A Little Slice of Hell, sounds like a return to the style of the films that gave him his first break.
A Little Slice of Hell adapts John Goodrich’s popular short story, which was first published in the debut issue of Assemble Artifacts. The plot follows two underpaid supermarket employees who encounter a customer who is demonic. Not figuratively. He is literally from Hell.
The script has been written by Greg Weidman and Geoff Tock, who are better known for their work on CBS series like Limitless and Zoo. Here, they are expected to build on Goodrich’s original story and rework an earlier draft by Emily V. Gordon, co-writer of The Big Sick.
But, honetly, what makes this project stand out is probably the setting. As we’ve all learnt over the years, horror works best when it creeps into places you know too well. We’ve all queued behind someone arguing over coupons. We’ve all stood under those flickering fluorescent lights. Now imagine that same aisle in the store becoming a place of nightmares.
And that’s Sandberg’s bread and butter. He works best with smaller budgets and setups. His biggest short film had a simple premise that involved a light switch and a demon hidden in a room. It was brilliant stuff. Sandberg knows how to stage a scare, then land a character beat without losing momentum.
We can expect to use that same magic on A Little Slice of Hell.
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