Mickey Keating (director)

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Mickey Keating (born 1990) is an American film director and writer. He began by interning at Blumhouse as a teenager, then directed his feature debut Ritual, produced by his friend Eric Fleischmann. His next two films, Pod and Darling, were shot nine months apart and both premiered in 2015; Darling was produced by Glass Eye Pix, where Keating had also interned.

For Carnage Park, a neo-Western horror released in 2016, Fleischmann returned as producer. Critics noted that while Darling and Carnage Park show clear influences from other horror films, Keating’s wide range across subgenres marks him as a promising talent. His next film, Psychopaths, finished principal photography in March 2016 and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2017.

Crooks, a heist film, began shooting in 2018, and Offseason, a horror film, finished filming in 2020. Keating also hosts The Core, a talk show on Shudder and Uproxx where he interviews filmmakers and explores practical effects.

Keating is known for borrowing elements from established styles and giving them his own twist. For example, Darling is influenced by Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, while Carnage Park nods to the thrillers of Sam Peckinpah and Peter Watkins. He is also noted for his fast-paced, flashy use of inter-titles and captions.