A viral creepy Reddit story about a missing girl is being made into a thriller movie with Madame Web's Sydney Sweeney

Sydney Sweeney
(Image credit: Getty)

Sydney Sweeney is bringing a viral Reddit short story to life with a new movie – and it sounds seriously creepy.

Sweeney is set to star in and produce the movie, which is based on the story 'I to be a missing girl so I could rob her family.' The story was posted on r/nosleep, a subreddit dedicated to creepy short stories, four years ago and currently has nearly 4,000 upvotes.

Written by Joe Cote, a high school English teacher, it follows a woman who turns up on a family's doorstep pretending to be their daughter who went missing 10 years earlier, aged 18. She plans to stay for just one night in their house, long enough to steal their belongings and get away. However, she soon realizes that she's made a dangerous mistake…

Eric Roth, who's worked on screenplays for movies like Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Dune, and Killers of the Flower Moon, is penning the script. No directors are attached to the project just yet.

Known for her roles in movies like Madame Web, Anyone But You, and Immaculate (the latter of which she also produced), Sweeney can next be seen alongside Amanda Seyfried in The Housemaid, a new psychological thriller directed by A Simple Favor's Paul Feig, which is set to be released this December.

The feature adaptation of 'I pretended to be a missing girl' doesn't have a release date yet. While we wait for more updates, check out our guide to the best upcoming horror movies on the way in 2025.

Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. 

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