Halsey to Write and Star in Horror Thriller ‘REPLACER’ With Director Avan Jogia

Published 05/14/2026, 12:23 AM CDT

Credit: iamhalsey Via Instagram

After spending years turning emotional wreckage, industrial chaos, and dystopian fantasies into entire musical eras, Halsey now appears ready to drag that same beautifully unstable energy straight into horror cinema. Fresh off the blood-soaked neon world of MaXXXine, the singer-songwriter has officially boarded psycho-s***** horror film REPLACER as co-writer, producer, and lead star alongside Avan Jogia. And if Halsey’s chaotic horror presence as Tabby Martin in MaXXXine proved anything, REPLACER may already be positioning itself as one of 2027’s most dangerously buzzworthy psychological thrillers.

Hidden beneath Montreal’s underground pulse and distorted subway frequencies, what terrifyingly feral chaos could Halsey’s  spread across the horror world?

Halsey set to write, produce and lead horror thriller REPLACER

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Alongside director Avan Jogia and executive producer Lilly Wachowski, Halsey’s REPLACER officially launched sales during this week’s Cannes market. The fever-drenched thriller follows Proxy, a troubled DJ trapped inside Montreal’s grimy underground music scene who soon encounters a pirate-radio collective beneath the city streets. However, after a mysterious subway signal begins infecting the broadcasts, the nightmare spirals into something primal and violent. 

While much surrounding REPLACER still remains hidden beneath static noise, director Jogia described the film as an electric club-horror story fused with romance, belonging, and a terrifying sense of collective transformation. Adding to the praise, producer Wachowski also described the project as a surreal genre collision packed with psychological horror, thriller, and dark comedy energy rooted in Montreal’s rarely explored underground culture. The filmmaker also compared Avan Jogia’s creative instincts to those of directors like David Cronenberg, Tony Scott, and John Carpenter, while expressing excitement about helping bring the “super cool” and deeply anarchic story to the screen.

“Avan and Halsey’s script is a surreal hyper-dive into a twitchy, conspiratorial genre mashing snarl of horror/thriller/comedy, set against the grit and grime of a rarely glimpsed Montreal subculture," Wachowski said.

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From dystopian pop fantasies to blood-soaked horror screens, Halsey’s artistic chaos has hardly stayed limited to music alone.

Halsey’s horror era and musical evolution so far

American singer-songwriter Halsey, born Ashley Nicolette Frangipane, first exploded online through Tumblr before transforming into one of pop music’s most shape-shifting modern artists. Across albums like ‘Badlands’, ‘Hopeless Fountain Kingdom’, ‘Manic’, ‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’, and ‘The Great Impersonator’, Halsey continuously blurred dystopian pop, industrial rock, emotional collapse, and theatrical storytelling into entire sonic universes. The singer also scored massive hits through tracks like ‘Without Me’, ‘Bad at Love’, ‘Ghost’, and ‘New Americana’, while building a reputation for emotionally chaotic concept-driven eras.

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Outside music, Halsey has steadily expanded deeper into film and television, especially within darker cinematic spaces. The artist appeared in Ti West’s retro horror film MaXXXine as Tabby Martin alongside Mia Goth, starred opposite Sydney Sweeney in crime thriller Americana, voiced Porsha Crystal in Sing 2, and even briefly appeared in A Star Is Born.

With REPLACER now entering horror territory full force, Halsey’s transition from dystopian pop architect to psychological horror storyteller suddenly feels almost inevitable.

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Are you excited to watch Halsey's upcoming thriller, REPLACER? Let us know in the comments.

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Lisa Roy

180 articles

Lisa Roy is an Entertainment Writer at NetflixJunkie, bringing Hollywood’s biggest moments to life through crisp news and fan-focused feature stories. With a Master’s in English Literature and over four years of experience across national and international domains , she is known for an eye for stories that fans instantly connect with. While she enjoys covering real-world gossip, she is deeply drawn to fictional universes of wizardry and witches.

Edited By: Aliza Siddiqui

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