Movies
Ti West’s Brooklyn Home Infested With ‘Bedbugs’
Tango Pictures, a new production venture created by producers Christina Lurie, Steven Shainberg, and Andrew Lazar, has acquired film rights to the Ben H. Winters’ bestselling horror novel Bedbugs and has set Ti West (The Innkeepers, House of the Devil, The Roost) to pen the screenplay, says Deadline.
The book features a premise that is all too relatable to anyone who travels to a major city like Manhattan or Toronto and turns over the mattress to see if anything is crawling as bedbug infestations become more common each year. “ ‘Bedbugs’ is a tale of urban paranoia set in Brooklyn that follows the Wendt family as they move in to a new home and suddenly start to encounter strange occurrences. Susan Wendt begins suffering what she suspects are bedbug bites, but she’s the only one getting bitten and suddenly fears she may be going crazy. That’s until she’s confronted with a more menacing explanation for the strange things happening to her and the family.”
“Reading ‘Bedbugs’ as a manuscript felt like the literary equivalent of a Ti West horror movie—a slow-burning supernatural story with fully realized characters, light on gore but heavy on menace and dread,” said Quirk associate publisher and creative director Jason Rekulak.
Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 psychological horror movie Possession is getting a remake from Smile writer/director Parker Finn, and Deadline reports that The Batman actor Paul Dano has joined the cast.
No word at this time on character details, though.
The original film starred Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill as a married couple in Cold War-era West Berlin whose relationship spirals into a supernatural nightmare. In Finn’s update, Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner will star as the turbulent couple in Finn’s Possession, and Adjani has officially given her blessing on Qualley’s casting.
Parker Finn is writing and directing the new take on Possession.
He’s also producing alongside Jonathan Fass via Bad Feeling, along with Roy Lee and Andrew Childs via Vertigo, and Robert Pattinson. Marc Bienstock is serving as exec producer.
Our own Brian Keiper celebrated Possession‘s 40th anniversary here on BD back in 2021, writing: “Few movies depict emotional turmoil as effectively and daringly as Andrzej Zulawksi’s Possession. It is a challenging and sometimes inscrutable film, both for the mind and the emotions. Zulawski struggles through a number of deep issues throughout the course of the film; issues that speak to some of humanity’s deepest pains and fears. In many ways it is about loss— loss of political ideals, loss of faith, and loss of innocence. But most of all, Possession is about the fear, pain, and anger that comes from the loss of a marriage.”
This will mark Dano’s first horror role. The actor previously appeared in sci-fi hits Looper and Okja.
Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill in Possession
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