Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax, Orphan, The Shallows) is back with survival thriller Play Dead, and Deadline reports that Netflix has acquired the film for release.
Play Dead has been described as a mix between Don’t Breathe and 1917.
Don’t Breathe is of course the intense home invasion horror movie directed by Fede Alvarez, while 1917 is the Sam Mendes-directed British war movie from back in 2019.
Jaume Collet-Serra’s Play Dead follows a shell-shocked soldier who, after seeing a deadly ambush wipe out his unit in the final days of World War II, must survive the night by pretending to be dead while surrounded by an enemy battalion of Nazi soldiers.
Matthias Schweighöfer (Army of the Dead) stars in the white-knuckle World War II thriller alongside Noah Jupe (The Carpenter’s Son, A Quiet Place).
Play Dead was written by Natalie Conway and Peter Stanley-Ward.
Sam Raimi will produce through Ghost House Pictures.
“Jaume and his cast bring the tense, emotional screenplay for Play Dead to life through a masterful building of suspense and riveting performances,” Raimi said in a statement.
“Play Dead is the rare script that felt unapologetically cinematic, built for tension and atmosphere,” Jaume Collet-Serra said when the project was first announced. “What grabbed me right away was the precision. Every scene escalates, every beat matters. It had this addictive quality where I was turning pages fast to see what happens next. One moment I was being pulled in with suspense and the next I was suddenly feeling all the emotion.”
