Imagine you sign up at a personal genomics company like Ancestry or 23AndMe curious about your health genes. Or your distant past. You send in your DNA swab and eagerly keep checking your email inbox for the results. And then, finally, they do land in your inbox!You learn something you were never supposed to learn – that YOU aren’t who you thought you were – and your parents knew it and kept it a family secret from you.

Unexpected revelations and family secrets play a big part of the story we tell in “THE DONOR: A MODERN HORROR STORY“.

Family secrets, by their nature, are terrifying things. To me, few things could be as scary as learning (as an adult!) that I wasn’t who I thought I was. A great void now lives inside your head where “you” used to live.

For all the horror moves and TV shows I’ve written and produced (“TALES FROM THE CRYPT‘, “DEMON KNIGHT“, “BORDELLO OF BLOOD“, “CHILDREN OF THE CORN 2“, “OUTER LIMITS“), nothing chills me to the bone quite like this.

As a launching point for storytelling? Chef’s kiss! As a launching point for going forward in one’s life? Yikes! Several of Hal’s donor kids took the news very hard. One immediately quit 23AndMe entirely.

Every family has its secrets. We just never imagine that we might be one of them.