Critically acclaimed filmmaker Francis Lee is reuniting with God’s Own Country and The Crown star Josh O’Connor to create a nightmarish new horror movie all about being queer, class structures, and the wilderness.

Marking a steep departure from romantic trips to the countryside and beach, Lee seems set on exploring more ghoulish territory with his third movie. According to a recent Esquire profile piece, the filmmaker has been working away on a horror movie all about “a sad young man alone in an epic wilderness.”

While not much has been confirmed about the movie beyond that summary, it does appear to be based on a novel and contains strong elements of “class and queerness.” However, this does not narrow down the storyline, as numerous LGBTQ+ horror centric books incorporate one or more of these elements such as the eco terror and wilderness imagery in Clive Barker’s Sacrament or the class commentary from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. 

During an interview about Ammonite, Lee further spoke about his third movie with Metro Weekly, “It’s about deep intimate human relationships, again. It’s a period piece. But it’s set in the 20th century. And it is a horror film.”

Lee went on to express his excitement over the film and its potential for starting conversations. He expressed that his horror movie “is dealing with some fundamentals about being queer. And often not in a very positive way. So it will be really fascinating to talk about it when it’s done.”

While the horror genre signals an exciting change for Lee, this movie carries over his signature of powerful explorations into the different forms of isolation. Ammonite star Kate Winslet expressed, “I think Francis is aware that to hang on to his quite singular way of seeing things, and writing about them, it helps him to be a bit separate, immersed in his own space.”

O’Connor further spoke on Lee’s portrayals of isolation, “He embraces it. He is melancholic. It’s something he can tap into. It’s all part of the richness of his work.”