House Wins

New supernatural show SurrealEstate adds something truly horrifying to the mix: estate agents!

THEY SAY “WRITE WHAT YOU know.” For George Olson, former advertising guy-turned-screenwriter, that meant when he was looking for inspiration for what is now his upcoming supernatural drama SurrealEstate, all he had to do was think back to a former estate agent client.

“He told me once about this listing that he had: this big, older house, built in the ’20s. It was a great house, and they were sure that it was really going to sell fast. But the homeowner told him that there was a hitch. Whoever buys the house, they’re also buying ‘Sad Sally,’” Olson dramatically relays to Red Alert. “I asked, ‘Who is Sad Sally?’ And he said that’s the name his daughter came up with for the woman in the old-fashioned nightgown, who sits at the kitchen table and cries a couple of nights a month.”

Aside from the massive goosebumps induced, Olson says the lingering question of that story stayed with him. “The guy told me if the house had termites, he knew who to call for that. If the roof leaks, he knew who to call. But who the hell do you call for this? And that’s what got me thinking about a real estate guy who specialised in these kinds of houses.”