Directory Profile

Sean is a screenwriter, professor, blogger and artist best known for horror films and swords-and-sandals movies.

After graduating from Brown University with a double major in pure mathematics and studio art, Sean spent several years working in Hollywood as a set dresser, prop assistant and art director working with filmmakers as diverse as James Cameron, David Fincher, and David Lynch.

He began writing and directing his own films in 1992 as a founding member of Filmmaker's Alliance. He continued his studies at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, graduating in 1997 with an MFA in production. His student film, The Shy and the Naked, won a grant from the Sloan Foundation. His short film Melancholy Baby won the Los Angeles Short Filmmaking Grant, presented to him by Eastman Kodak at the Directors Guild of America.

After finishing film school, Sean got his "break" when his first major spec script was purchased by MTV/Paramount in 2000, which led to a deal with Dimension Films. Since then, while working on genre features such as Conan The Barbarian and television such as MTV's The Dorm, Sean has returned to USC, where he is a professor at the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television. He also writes a blog about “images, ideas and storytelling,” Undergrids.com.

His current projects include MER, a horror movie about lascivious, man-eating mermaids, written for producer J. Todd Harris and director Mary Lambert (Pet Cemetery;) GRIM REAPER, a horror-superhero story in which a newly hired Grim Reaper hunts ghouls, “making sure the dead stay dead;” And FreakAngels, a nine-episode animated series for Crunchyroll.com.

Sean lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Micki Stern, of Micki Stern Music Services, and his daughter Sophie Hood, who will be attending Wesleyan University in the fall of 2019.