Oscar-winning sound designer Richard L. Anderson (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist) is writing and directing original creature feature Wekiwa, which Deadline reports has added Billy Zane (Demon Knight), Kevin Chapman (Person of Interest) and C.S. Lee (Dexter) to the cast.
Production on the 1983-set creature feature is set to begin next month near Orlando.
The synopsis reads: “Summer, 1983. A showman has sunk every dollar he has into a resort on a Florida island the Seminole have warned about for three hundred years. A British documentary director (Zane) arrives with four beautiful young performers to shoot the commercial that will save him. A county marine biologist arrives to find out what is wrong with the lagoon. Nobody on that island will say what is in the water. By Sunday, every one of them will wish they had.”
It’s a premise that brings Creature from the Black Lagoon to mind, though no creature details have been divulged yet. Wekiwa is the Creek word for “spring,” and the title could refer to the Wekiwa River, Florida’s longest.
Alex Trumble stars as the showman who owns the island.
Oliver Wyman, Ty Neckar, Tyler Steelman and newcomers Xhaania Wright and Caroline Jane West also star.
“We wanted the kind of film that sends an audience out grinning and a little afraid of the water,” said producers Salomé Breziner and Scott Rosenfelt. “Richard has spent forty years teaching audiences to believe in things they hear before they ever see them. That instinct is all over this film.”