The Reno (WIP)

Title: The Reno

Genre: Supernatural Horror/Psychological Thriller

Tagline: Some buildings don’t deserve a second chance.

Logline:

When Nash replaces the missing showrunner on a hit renovation series, she joins the crew restoring an abandoned Queensland church with a dark history. As her crew disappears, she must uncover the church’s forgotten secrets before it claims anyone else.

Synopsis:

When the showrunner of hit renovation series The Reno goes missing mid-shoot, Nash is sent to the Queensland tropics to finish the job. Still reeling from her father’s recent death, she throws herself into restoring a long-forgotten church built by a priest with a horrific past. As her crew disappears one by one, the site’s buried scandals come to light. With help from her remaining team and the priest’s surviving family, Nash must uncover the church’s forgotten secrets before it claims anyone else.

Comparative films

These films reflect the tone, pacing, and thematic undercurrents that inform The Reno. Each combines atmospheric tension with grounded, character-driven horror, offering exemplars for mood, setting, and narrative approach.

	The Borderlands (2013) – Dir: Elliot Goldner; Writer: Elliot Goldner – Atmospheric and unnerving, set in an isolated, decaying church where technology and faith collide. The creeping dread and slow-burn pacing echo The Reno’s escalating unease, with strange happenings grounded in a believable world before tipping into the horrific.
	Lake Mungo (2008) – Dir & Writer: Joel Anderson – Haunting in its stillness, with grief and the supernatural entwined through a documentary lens. The emotional undercurrent in The Reno works in a similar way — personal loss amplifies the fear, while the use of recorded media blurs the line between truth and perception.
	Relic (2020) – Dir: Natalie Erika James; Writers: Natalie Erika James, Christian White – A haunting exploration of grief and family legacy. Slow-building dread unfolds within a decaying home steeped in generational secrets.
	The Ritual (2017) – Dir: David Bruckner; Writers: Joe Barton, Andy Neill (based on the novel by Adam Nevill) – Nature as a malevolent force, with a group trapped far from safety and stalked by something tied to old beliefs. Like The Reno, the forest setting isn’t just background — it’s an active participant in the terror, wrapping the characters in an oppressive, inescapable atmosphere.
	The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) – Dir: André Øvredal; Writers: Ian B. Goldberg, Richard Naing – A contained, forensic unravelling of mystery where each revelation deepens the nightmare. The Reno mirrors this in its investigative core, peeling back layers of the past to reveal something ancient and malignant beneath a façade of normalcy.
	The Apostle (2018) – Dir & Writer: Gareth Evans – A clash of outsiders with a closed, insular community hiding grim secrets. The mix of visceral horror, religious fervour, and lush-but-menacing landscapes speaks to The Reno’s themes of intrusion, revelation, and the cost of uncovering what was meant to stay buried.

A show within a show

Be sure to check out the hit reality television series, The Reno, hosted by five-time Gold Logie Winner, and everyone’s favourite interior decorator, Armando San Valentino, Sunday nights at 7:30 on Mox!

Why am I writing this?

Growing up on Tamborine Mountain in the 1980s, I learnt quickly that alongside the beauty of the rainforests, waterfalls, and glowworm caves were the horrors of funnel-web spiders, snakes, and knowing the nearest hospital was an hour away. With The Reno, I wanted to take something familiar and safe—an Australian reality renovation series—and twist it into something sinister. By setting the horror in a place that feels recognisable, the unease becomes personal, turning the comfort of the known into the threat of the unknown.

Set against the eerie isolation of the Queensland rainforest, this female-led horror feature weaves supernatural terror with themes of grief and hidden histories.

Everything here can kill you—even the things that are already dead.