Scream king Justin Long (Drag Me to Hell, Tusk, Barbarian) joins Emile Hirsch (The Autopsy of Jane Doe) and Kevin Connolly (Entourage) in Lice, an upcoming parasite horror described as a mashup of The Breakfast Club and Lord of the Flies.
Billed as a gruesome throwback to ‘80s high school classics (per Variety), Lice is the first feature from Connolly’s ActionPark Productions, and is the feature debut of director/cinematographer Jonathan Bensimon. Written by Anthony Musella and Shaun Harris (The Hemingway Thief), from an original concept by Connolly, Lice follows a deadly outbreak of the parasite at a Long Island high school in the 1980s.
When the school goes under military lockdown, the itch-crazed students turn on each other in a desperate struggle to survive. Hirsch stars as burned-out science teacher Mr. Shanker, who finds new purpose as he investigates the bloodthirsty mites, Long as Principal Van, a man who is out of his depth and soon out of his mind, and Connolly as the tenacious Detective Sikorski, the desperate cop on the outside racing against time to contain the outbreak before it consumes the entire town.
Here's what Connolly has to say about getting Lice:
“I wanted to make the kind of movies that I loved as a kid […] I’m a horror fan and I wanted to make something for guys like me — fun, weird, scary, and completely unpredictable. It made perfect sense to launch our feature division with a project this bold and ambitious. Jonathan Bensimon is that rare combination of creative mind and brilliant technician. And when you get two incredible actors who can blend comedy and drama the way Emile and Justin can, you’ve really got something special on your hands.”
Highland Film Group is repping international rights for Lice, produced by Connolly, Jeremy Alter, and Gary Goldman, and handling sales at Cannes' Marché du Film. Look out for updates as they crawl in.
