Leigh Janiak

Leigh Anne Janiak (born February 1, 1980) is an American filmmaker. She is best known for directing the horror films Honeymoon (2014) and the Fear Street Trilogy (2021). Early life and education Janiak was born on February 1, 1980, in Ohio. She graduated from Mentor High School in Mentor, Ohio, where she was heavily involved in theater. She did an undergraduate course in comparative religion at New York University, before studying at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and then at a graduate school at the University of Chicago, where she was studying for a PhD in Modern Jewish Literature but left without earning the degree. Career Janiak moved to Los Angeles in 2005, where she worked for two production companies. Her first industry job was at Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, as a producer's assistant. Prior to directing Honeymoon, Janiak turned down an opportunity to direct a network television show as one of the conditions of the directing job required her to shadow a veteran director. Janiak was afraid that shadowing a veteran director would affect her career as a female filmmaker as she did not want to be stigmatized. Janiak made her directorial debut with the horror film Honeymoon, starring Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway, debuting the film at the South by Southwest in 2014. The film's development started in 2010, and Janiak began writing the script together with Phil Graziadei in 2012. The film shot in 2013 in North Carolina on a limited budget. It received positive reviews from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes' critics' consensus stating that it "packs more slow-building horror than many bigger-budget productions." In May 2015, Sony Pictures announced that Janiak would be writing and directing a remake of the 1996 horror film The Craft. In 2017, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Janiak was no longer attached to the project. Janiak also directed some episodes of the horror TV shows Scream and Outcast. She directed season 1, episode 7, "In the Trenches" and season 2, episode 9, "The Orphange" for Scream. For Outcast, she directed season 1, episode 7, "The Damage Done". She also directed season 1, episode 1 of Amazon Studios' 2021 teen drama series Panic. All of her entries in television were received well by fans.