Kevin Smith’s Horror Anthology Killroy Was Here Gets First Trailer

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is mostly known for his comedic features, from Clerks to Mallrats to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, though Smith has expressed his love for genre films throughout his career, with his upcoming project, Killroy Was Here, paying respects to the world of horror, which has just gotten its first trailer. Despite Smith being well-known for his comedies, he’s no stranger to the world of horror, having delivered audiences experiences like Red State, Tusk, and a segment of Holidays, with the new film looking to offer audiences a fair share of both humor and horror. Killroy Was Here is aiming for a 2021 release.

Smith has been teasing the new film for months, with the trailer having been unveiled officially last week during a Comic-Con@Home event. During the panel, Smith also teased, “It’s got a theme that runs through it, and all these little stories that happen around [Killroy]. He’s kinda like a kid Avenger. If you f-ck with kids, Killroy will show up. And he looks wonderfully goofy. Bald head and a nose that hangs over the fence. [Robert Kurtzman] designed something that’s kinda horrifying but it’s also goofy at the same time.” [H/T Bloody Disgusting]

The filmmaker’s first venture into the genre world came with 2011’s Red State, an experience almost entirely devoid of Smith’s signature humor. Subsequent horror projects he developed leaned more heavily into the world of absurdity, with this first look at Killroy Was Here seemingly seeing him holding back some of that outlandish humor to find a more balanced blend of frights and laughs.

Earlier this year, Smith noted how he considered George Romero and Stephen King’s Creepshow as the major motivation of developing a genuinely creepy experience that still had plenty of fun.

“It’s fun. It’s really, really good. It reminds me of Creepshow,” Smith shared during a YouTube Q&A. “Not nearly as good as Creepshow, but that’s kind of what we were doing, an anthology like that. Rubber mask horror anthology. So it turned out wonderful.”

While the vignettes in Creepshow were united with the concept that they were all lifted from a horror comic, it appears that the Killroy character is the uniting factor of Smith’s project.

Stay tuned for details on Killroy Was Here.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!