Darin Read

The product of a grandmother who raided sacred Native American burial grounds on one side of the family tree and a grandmother who was a world-class violinist on the other, Darin Read was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona.

As a child Darin traveled throughout the southwest with his family buying and selling kachinas, baskets and pottery from Native Americans out of an old green station wagon. He also spent numerous hours drawing his own comic books and shooting super 8 films starring his Six Million Dollar Man action figure.

Darin graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in history where he convinced his thesis advisor to allow him to shoot a documentary (entitled THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF ASU) in lieu of writing a paper. His first short narrative film, FEAR, won the best picture award at the USC / Universal Studios film program. After directing and producing several more films as an MFA student at Loyola Marymount University, he worked on a myriad of feature films for New Line Cinema including THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy.

More recently, he co-produced HAUNTED PLANET and wrote and directed UP UNDER THE ROOF, two 35mm films based on classic short stories. The latter won the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Editor awards at the Film Outside the Frame Festival and won the best horror short award at the 8th Annual Indie Producer Film Contest. Both films have played at numerous festivals worldwide.

Rue Morgue Magazine called UP UNDER THE ROOF "a compelling take on the coming-of-age story that depicts what it truly means to face fears." 28 Days Later praised the film as providing an "excellent examination of the universality of fears...prepare for Read's unique take on the timeless ghost stories of the past."

Darin has post-supervised FINAL DESTINATION FIVE, INTO THE STORM, SAN ANDREAS, THE CONJURING 2, IT, REMINISCENCE and FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES for New Line / Warner Bros. and was an Associate Producer on RAMPAGE, IT CHAPTER TWO and BLACK ADAM. He also executive produced HAUNTING MELISSA, the first feature film designed as an iPad app.

Read is next slated to direct his adaptation of Thomas Tessier's story "I Remember Me" from Tessier's Ghost Music for the feature film anthology THOMAS TESSIER'S WORLD OF HURT. He is a member of both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producer's Guild of America.

You can catch up with him on Facebook and Instagram.

Interview recorded on 2026-02-22.