The Wildling

Faux-documentary black comedy-horror about a reality show where contestants need to survive in the wild. Or so it seems: In reality, whistle-blower footage shows that the program has been set up by shady billionaires to test different ways of achieving immortality. And the unwary people participating are the test subjects...

Footage has actually finished already on this one, with Adam Park directing, and starring Jördis Richter, Tim Plester and Richard Brake.

Greywald’s Chronicles: Lost Tales of the Lowlands

An eight-episode dark fantasy series in which a teenage runaway and a 400-year-old cursed wanderer join forces, to fight ancient witchcraft and monsters out of Dutch folklore. The proof-of-concept shots look amazing, as the team relies almost entirely on using practical effects in a mix of miniatures and real locations.

Children of the Moor

Richard Raaphorst is attached as director to this horror film, currently in its design stage but with a finished script. A family moves to a swamp to convert an old farm into a wellness centre, followed by a television crew. Things do not go as planned due to some very weird mushrooms, but when the history of the farm becomes known and a mass grave of children is discovered, literally all hell breaks loose.

The project is looking for a co-producer and I hope it gets made because it looks positively crazy.

Axis Mundi

Dutch Kaiju?! Hey, why not! According to folklore, two gigantic stone giants lie asleep under the Netherlands, to travel to the sea each spring. When the government tries to stop the annual trek, one of the giants goes on a disastrous rampage...

To be directed by Tim Smit, the creator of the award-winning What's in the Box? short.

Our Possessed Friend

Gnomes director Ruwan Heggelmans plans to make this horror comedy about a guy whose girl-of-his-dreams gets possessed by a Celtic demon. Together with friends they travel to Scotland to try and find a shaman capable of doing the exorcism, but they need to be quick or they will all become demon fodder... with the rest of the world soon to follow if they're not careful.

Greek Monster Tours

This is an episodic comedy series being developed by writer Stephie Theodora. When ancient monsters awaken and take over the Peleponnesos, two entrepreneurs, Yanni and Kosta, set up a business guiding tourists through the abandoned countryside on a monster safari. Hey, what could go wrong?

Well, the monsters already look extremely right, with loads of practical creatures and suits being built by the Mad Scientists as we speak, for a proof-of-concept.

The Fisherman

Last but not least there is this serious drama by Adam Park, about a grief-stricken man who, a year after his wife's disappearance, is getting increasingly convinced she's calling him for help... from underneath the ice on the nearby lake. Is he becoming mad? Is it the alcohol talking? Or is there really something out there, trying to warn... or lure him?

Currently in early development.

Cannes 2025: A Look At What The Mad Scientists Are Doing...

Cannes 2025: A Look At What The Mad Scientists Are Doing...

Ard Vijn, Editor, Europe; Rotterdam, The Netherlands (@ardvark23)

May 24 2025, 12:00 PM

The world's most famous film festival rounds up today, and we've had plenty of reviews in the past weeks. But Cannes also has a business side of course, a vast market where people try and get their projects financed, scout for scripts, producers and actors, and generally try to extend their network.

The Mad Scientists were there as well, a Dutch collective of multi-talented artists co-founded by director Richard Raaphorst of Frankenstein's Army fame. And they had a large portfolio of projects to show, some of them nearly finished, some of them in a very early stage. All of them genre...

Well, if memory serves me right, giving a bit of attention to these never hurts, so I asked if it was OK if I posted some of their projects here and they were happy to share their industry map with me. So, without further ado, what are the Mad Scientists pitching these days?

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