By MICHAEL GINGOLD
And he’s got some top-class creature creators on board.
Variety reports that Bret Easton Ellis, author of AMERICAN PSYCHO, LESS THAN ZERO and the recent serial-killer saga THE SHARDS, will direct his first feature, the psychological monster movie RELAPSE. Joseph Quinn, STRANGER THINGS’ Eddie Munson (pictured) who co-stars in this summer’s A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, will star, and the creature will be designed by DDT Studios, who won the Best Makeup Oscar for PAN’S LABYRINTH and are up for Best Makeup and Hairstyling this year for SOCIETY OF THE SNOW.
In RELAPSE, which Ellis scripted, Quinn plays Matt Cullen, who, according to the synopsis, “checks into rehab after witnessing a horrific death during a drugged-up party. Three months later, he is set to get his life back together, staying at his parents’ mansion in the hills of Los Angeles. But things have changed around Matt and everything seems off balance. Fueled by his unstable personality and the invading power of social media, Matt’s paranoia grows, messing with his rehabilitation program. As he starts using again, a mysterious presence starts growing around Matt, and a monster that has been haunting him since he was a teenager reveals itself. His therapist tries to help, convinced that the monster is actually in Matt’s head.”
“I grew up watching the iconic horror movies of the 1970s,” Ellis tells the trade. “I’ve written LUNAR PARK, a horror novel, as an homage to Stephen King. It seems appropriate that my first feature would be a horror film. There is a simplicity to RELAPSE that seems like the perfect form for my directing debut: something direct and impactful. [I’ve] never seen a monster movie in the kind of upscale LA setting I wrote about and I am familiar with.” He goes on to call the project a “monster movie with my signature characters–young, handsome, rich–at the center. It will have my strokes: sex, drugs and paranoia. It will also be a fun, lush, and commercial feature film for a lot of people to enjoy,”
Ramy Nahas of SND, which is producing RELAPSE with Adrian Guerra’s Nostromo and Simon Wallon’s Kiss & Kill, says, “RELAPSE combines the look and feel of the horror genre with the unique perspective of Bret Easton Ellis. It is the perfect mix of the themes Bret is famous for within a monster feature film. A cult author, a rising star actor and a captivating script.” Wallon adds, “There is nothing more exciting than being by his side while he is inventing his filmic language alongside collaborators. Having SND’s and Adrian Guerra’s experiences in the field to engine this project is what RELAPSE truly needs.”
