How Will Wes Anderson Make a Horror Movie? 

Wes Anderson, the man behind movies like Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Royal Tenenbaums has recently expressed his desire to make a horror movie. Anderson, a hipster Kenneth Parcell, is known for his distinctive offbeat comedies full of bright colors, copious mustaches, twee aesthetics, and cartoonish characters who speak in a stilted, disaffected manner. Obviously a Wes Anderson horror movie would be a sight to behold. Here’s what it will look like.

Owen Wilson will be the Final Girl.

Wes Anderson favors a semi-regular casting pool that includes Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, and Adrien Brody. Owen Wilson is his most frequent collaborator, which makes sense because the two are old college pals. Wilson, therefore, will be Anderson’s Final Girl — the last one standing at the end of the horror movie, dazed with a bloody chainsaw in hand while folksy music plays and a soothing narrator cuts in with a voiceover. The scene will then pan out to show the narrator in a different setting, because there must always be a frame tale.

Willem Dafoe will be the creepy gas station attendant.

Every horror movie needs a creepy gas station attendant who either warns the protagonists off their journey or otherwise acts in a manner that involves a lot of crazy-eyed grinning and makes them uneasy. Viggo Mortensen did it in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie; now it’s Willem Dafoe’s turn. His face was practically made to be a creepy gas station attendant.

Any buildings will look like they were constructed by a cake decorator who stole the blueprints from a children’s board game.

Even if they’re supposed to be creepy murder lairs, Wes Anderson won’t let that get in his way.

Precocious children will find out who the killer is before any of the adults.

Anderson loves precocious children, and his children love listing their arcane interests and commenting on things adults don’t notice. Anderson’s children would figure out who the killer is before anyone else. Picture an episode of Scooby-Doo cast entirely with Velmas. When the adults don’t believe them, there will be an extended list-making sequence where they narrow down who the killer is and why the adults are wrong. There will be at least three items on the list that have absolutely nothing to do with solving a murder, like a collection of stories with dogs as protagonists or an embroidered handkerchief.

The precocious children will go missing and need to be pursued in an overly elaborate manner.

Anderson loves needlessly complicated rescue missions almost as much as he loves precocious children. All the better to throw in quick cuts, actor cameos, mustaches on mustaches, and an atmosphere of conspiracy. An implausibly large group of people will be in on the killer’s conspiracy, and several increasingly absurd murders will be shown in a montage. An animal or two will be involved in at least one of the murders.

The killer will get around in a non-standard vehicle.

Because nobody uses conventional transportation here, what kind of world do you think this is? And nothing says threatening like old-timey bicycles.

The killer will be revealed to be Tilda Swinton. With a mustache.

In Wes Anderson’s world, everyone must have a perfectly waxed mustache. Tilda Swinton must also always play commanding and moderately terrifying characters. In his horror movie, these two fetishes will merge. In her lair, along with the usual murderous implements, Tilda Swinton will also have a collection of charmingly obscure pipe instruments that she builds into furniture in her spare time.

But actually, once she’s vanquished, it will be revealed that Adrien Brody was secretly working with her all along.

He will also have a mustache.