Halsey Stars in Horror Film ‘Replacer’ With Avan Jogia

Halsey is stepping fully into the world of film — and she’s not doing it halfway. The three-time Grammy-nominated singer is set to star in Replacer, a “psycho-sexual horror” film she co-wrote with her partner, actor-director Avan Jogia, who is also directing. And the person signing on to executive produce? Lilly Wachowski — yes, one half of the duo behind The Matrix.

Halsey plays Proxy, described as a “troubled DJ” who finds herself stranded in Montreal. She falls in with an alluring artist and his circle of friends who run an underground radio station — until a mysterious signal buried deep beneath the city’s subway system warps the broadcast and begins transforming everyone it touches into “something raw, primal, and unrecognizable.” It’s eerie, it’s underground, and it sounds exactly like the kind of film that gets a cult following before it even opens wide.

What Lilly Wachowski and Avan Jogia Are Saying

Wachowski isn’t holding back her enthusiasm. “Avan and Halsey’s script is a surreal hyper-dive into a twitchy, conspiratorial genre mashing snarl of horror/thriller/comedy, set against the grit and grime of a rarely glimpsed Montreal subculture,” she said. “This thing is packed! I have the sense that Avan’s eyeballs have gulped down a steady diet of the films I grew up on — David Cronenberg, Alex Cox, Tony Scott, John Carpenter. Anarchists United is beyond excited to join the Replacer team and bring this super cool story to the screen!”

That’s a hell of a reference list. Cronenberg in particular feels like the obvious touchstone for a film about bodies warping and identities dissolving — and the Montreal setting only deepens that connection, given how much of Cronenberg’s early work was rooted in that city.

Jogia, for his part, described the film in terms that are almost poetic: “Replacer is a bright and electric club horror mashed together with a vulnerable romantic story about belonging and community. Come together. Leave as one.”

A Real Creative Partnership on Screen and Off

What makes this project particularly interesting is how personal it is. Halsey and Jogia didn’t just attach their names to someone else’s vision — they built this thing together. The script is theirs, the story is theirs, and the film’s Montreal underground setting feels like a deliberate choice to go somewhere unexpected, far from the Hollywood machinery.

For Halsey, it’s a natural next step. She’s been quietly building her acting résumé — most notably with a role in MaXXXine, Ti West’s slasher trilogy closer — but Replacer is a different kind of move. This is her as a writer and lead, not just a musician crossing over for a cameo. And Jogia, who audiences know from Zombieland: Double Tap and has the upcoming Backrooms project in his pipeline, is making a clear pivot to directing with real creative ambition behind it.

Halsey reposted Deadline’s coverage of the project on her Instagram Stories, which given how deliberately she tends to use social media, reads as genuine excitement rather than routine promotion.

The Cannes Push

The film is launching sales at this week’s Cannes market, with CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group repping North American rights and Film Mode Entertainment handling international sales. Both Halsey and Jogia are in Cannes to support the launch and meet with potential buyers — which means the project is being positioned seriously, not as a passion project left to find its own way.

On the producing side, the full team includes Kyle Mann of Independent Edge, Isabelle Deluce of Soft Focus Films, Damiano Tucci of Getaway Entertainment, and Olivier Picard and David Pierrat of Parce Que Films co-producing — alongside Wachowski and several others exec producing under the Anarchists United banner.

“Come together. Leave as one.” If that tagline is any indication, Replacer is going to get under your skin — which is exactly the point.