Bill Hader's ‘They Know' Tested Amazing, A24 Hasn't Seen It Yet — Sundance Premiere?

Some of the directing Bill Hader delivered in his acclaimed HBO series “Barry” was impressively inventive — especially the action sequences. The guy knows how to build taut, tense, and terrific set pieces.

Good news for "Barry" fans: Bill Hader's feature directorial debut, "They Know," is just about done, and word is that it has tested great these last few weeks.

Back in February, I wrote about Hader finally setting up his long-promised first feature, with Linda Cardellini starring opposite him. Fast forward nine months and the movie is in the can. Speaking to TheWrap, Hader said he's locking picture this week, after which the team will decide whether to premiere it at a festival or go straight to finding a distributor.

The basic plot has a divorced dad (Hader) grows suspicious that his ex-wife is secretly dating a mysterious man who is having a strange influence on their children. But I'm told the plot is far more esoteric than that logline suggests. And while it was sold as a horror movie, Hader says it has morphed into something closer to his HBO series — people who've seen it compared it to "Barry," with that tone that swings from very funny to very serious to kind of scary. It’s a dark psychological movie, but with some humor.

Interestingly, the key that unlocked the script was a screening of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cloud" — Hader says he walked out of it suddenly knowing how to fix the story he and Duffy Boudreau had shelved after struggling. He then wrote it alone while Boudreau was busy on FX's "The Lowdown," and MRC came aboard by the end of the year. The film shot in just 30 days, something Hader and his “Barry” DP Carl Herse were used to

Much of the "Barry" family is back behind the camera too, including Herse as DP, Wade Allen as stunt coordinator, and Ali Greer as editor.

So where does it go from here? Unless Cannes calls dibs and programs it in Un Certain Regard, as it did with “Club Kid” and “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” I'd expect Sundance to grab this one. And for what it's worth, A24 hasn't seen it yet. Something tells me that won't last long; it seems like the perfect home for this film.

Remember, Guillermo del Toro has been singing Hader’s praises as a director since 2019. He’s been pushing him to make movies for many years now. We'll soon find out if the big screen agrees.