Ghostface, Sharks, and a Very Yellow Hallway: LAFS & LARS Alumni Behind 2026’s Horror Hits

Horror carried 2026. Ghostface turned 30 and posted the best opening in Scream history. A YouTube creator broke A24’s opening-weekend record with a movie about empty office hallways. Zach Cregger gave Resident Evil the strongest debut the franchise has ever had, and Netflix found a global audience for sharks swimming through a flooded kitchen. LAFS and LARS alumni have credits on six 2026 horror movies and series, working everywhere from VFX houses and dub stages to casting offices and the video assist cart.

Between them, these productions cover most of the subgenres of horror: slasher, supernatural, survival, zombie, and whatever you call a film about an infinite yellow office. Here’s who did what, in release order, just in time for Halloween.

Backrooms

Kane Parsons started The Backrooms as a YouTube series in 2022, building it in Blender from a creepypasta about endless, fluorescent-lit rooms. A24, James Wan’s Atomic Monster, Chernin Entertainment, and 21 Laps turned it into a feature starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. It opened May 29 to $81 million, the biggest debut in A24 history, then crossed $100 million domestic in six days. Parsons became the youngest filmmaker ever to open a film at No. 1. The reported budget was about $10 million.

Production designer Danny Vermette built a sprawling practical set and, as he told the Motion Picture Association, tried to leave as little for VFX as possible. VFX still had plenty to do. Supervisor Edward Douglas split the work across several vendors and told Gold Derby the brief from day one was to make Parsons’ version of the Backrooms, with studio resources behind it.

Damani Blair (Film, 2019) was a VFX producer at Barnstorm VFX, one of those vendors. At a VFX studio, the producer bids the work, builds and manages the budget and schedule, and serves as the client’s main contact on cost and timing. Ariana Miller (Animation, 2013) worked on the film as a digital compositor, assembling CG elements, live-action plates, and effects into final frames that read as one image. Backrooms gets its dread from rooms that look real and feel slightly off, and compositing is the step that blends CG and live-action footage so the audience can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

Possession

Possession is a five-part Sky Original from writer Karla Crome, set between Bristol and Jamaica across two timelines, the present day and the 1760s. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Claudia, a lawyer who travels to Jamaica to contest a will and finds that the disputed estate is a former plantation, the same house that has haunted her nightmares. Jonny Lee Miller, Sheldon Shepherd, and Bel Powley co-star. It premiered August 6 on Sky and NOW.

Storm Saulter (Film, 2001) directed all five episodes and serves as an executive producer. Born in Negril, Saulter has built his career around Jamaican stories, from his debut feature Better Mus’ Come to Sprinter, which won Best Director, Best Narrative Feature, and the Audience Award at the 2018 American Black Film Festival. Possession reunites him with Shepherd, the lead of Better Mus’ Come. Saulter has said he’s constantly engaging with colonial paintings and Caribbean visual history, especially how those images frame power and who they put at the center. That lens fits Possession, which cuts between a present-day fight over a will and the same Jamaican plantation in the 1760s.

Thrash

Tommy Wirkola’s Thrash started life at Sony as Beneath the Storm, became Shiver, and finally surfaced on Netflix on April 10 under its third title. The premise: a Category 5 hurricane levels a coastal town, and the storm surge brings sharks in with it. Phoebe Dynevor, Djimon Hounsou, and Whitney Peak star. It debuted with 37.7 million views, one of Netflix’s biggest opening weekends of the year.

Maurice Vy (Film, 2009) worked as video assist operator. Video assist routes the camera feeds to the monitors at video village and records every take for instant playback, so the director, script supervisor, and department heads can check a shot before the crew resets. On a film built on water work, rain towers, and creatures that aren’t there yet, playback is how anyone knows a take worked. Vy turns up again below: Thrash and Insidious: Out of the Further both shot in Australia, and he worked both.

Scream 7

Thirty years after the original, Kevin Williamson, who wrote the 1996 Scream, stepped behind the camera for the seventh installment, with Neve Campbell back as Sidney Prescott. Paramount opened it on February 27 to a franchise-best $64.1 million. Three LAFS and LARS alumni worked on it.

Jon Greasley (Audio Production, 2011) served as sound designer and effects re-recording mixer, mixing the film in Dolby Atmos with dialogue and music mixer Tom Ozanich on Stage 1 at Signature Post in Burbank. In a detailed interview with A Sound Effect, Greasley puts a jump scare at “about 98% timing.” During test screenings, he skipped the filmmakers’ seats in the back and sat among the audience to see who actually jumped. The scares that didn’t land got fixed by sliding sounds a few frames earlier or later. It’s been a busy year for Greasley, who also cut sound effects on Project Hail Mary and won a 2026 Golden Reel Award for The Gorge.

Rafael Baez Jr. (Film, 2013) worked as assistant picture editor. Assistant editors keep the cutting room running: organizing dailies, prepping cuts for screenings, and turning over the locked picture to sound and VFX. On a slasher, that handoff carries weight. The scene where Ghostface taps his knife through a panic-room wall was timed in the edit before sound touched it, so the cut Baez Jr. helped deliver became the blueprint Greasley mixed against.

Shelby Holt (Film, 2012) worked as local casting associate. Scream 7 shot around metro Atlanta, and local casting handles the roles filled in the region where a production shoots, the faces that have to hold the frame next to Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox. Holt also worked casting on the final season of Outer Banks, which we featured in our September roundup.

Insidious: Out of the Further

The sixth Insidious film leaves the Lambert family behind. Amelia Eve plays Gemma, a young mother who discovers she can enter the Further and, less conveniently, bring what lives there back with her. Jacob Chase wrote and directed, Lin Shaye returns as Elise, and Sony opened it August 21, and it arrived on digital October 6, so it’s the easiest title here to queue up this weekend.

Three alumni worked on it. At Folks VFX, Jennifer Trevino (Animation, 2016) worked as VFX editor and Magica Osment (Animation, 2011) worked as a compositor. At a vendor like Folks, the VFX editor is the studio’s link to the production’s editorial team: bringing in the client’s cut and plates, checking that each shot covers the frames the client expects, and cutting new versions into the sequence for internal and client reviews. Compositors handle the final assembly of each shot, combining live-action plates, CG, and effects elements into one finished frame. On set, Maurice Vy (Film, 2009) ran video assist, his second Australian-shot horror production of the year.

Before you hit play this Halloween:

• Alumni: worked on something scary (or not) that we should know about? Tell us through the Alumni Network.
• Want to see where sound, VFX, and film production are taught? Request more info or apply now.

FAQ

Which LAFS and LARS alumni worked on Scream 7?

Jon Greasley (Audio Production, 2011) was sound designer and effects re-recording mixer, Rafael Baez Jr. (Film, 2013) was assistant picture editor, and Shelby Holt (Film, 2012) was local casting associate.

Did Los Angeles Film School alumni work on Backrooms?

Yes. Damani Blair (Film, 2019) was a VFX producer at Barnstorm VFX, and Ariana Miller (Animation, 2014) worked as a digital compositor on the A24 film.

Who directed the series Possession?

Storm Saulter, a 2001 graduate of The Los Angeles Film School, directed all five episodes of the Sky Original series and is one of its executive producers.

What does a Foley mixer do?

A Foley mixer records the Foley artists who perform sound effects such as footsteps, cloth movement, and prop handling in sync with picture, then shapes those recordings so they sit naturally in the final mix