The Last Exorcism was a heavily promoted but still slightly surprising horror success this summer, grossing over $41 million on just a $2 million budget and refreshing the old "found footage" horror trope with its story of an exorcist huckster faced with actual evil. With his low-budget success story behind him, filmmaker Eric Newman is moving on to something a little bigger, but equally scary.
Variety reports that he's retiming with Last Exorcism producer Eli Roth and financier Studio Canal to make Psycho Killer, a suspense film about a serial killer and the female highway patrolman seeking revenge on him after he kills her husband. Apparently nearly a quarter of the film follows the killer alone, before the two stories collide and we follow both sides of the cat-and-mouse chase. The script will be written by Andrew Kevin Walker, whose name you my not recognize but who wrote a totemic classic of the serial killer genre: David Fincher's Seven.
They're looking for a female lead "who is somebody audiences know but not a big star," which might mean they'll avoid the "cast a random hottie" go-to for most horror movies. Actually I wonder if they'll just go with Ashley Bell, who was quite memorable as the possessed girl in The Last Exorcism and is probably anxious to show her range as a character a little more, well, normal. After all, it was her spooky image on most of the Last Exorcism advertising. Don't they owe her a part of the next big effort?
