Here's a small scoop for Sunday night. Nothing too exciting, since it concerns the once-promising Ben Wheatley, a filmmaker who broke out with the cult-horror gut-punch "Kill List" (2011) and the black-and-white acid trip "A Field in England" (2013), only to spend the decade since sliding from midnight-movie provocateur to journeyman.
James McAvoy has been cast in Wheatley's next feature, titled "Fear the Reaper." The project is currently seeking a distributor and is slated to shoot in London. The plot is under wraps — it's obviously not a Blue Öyster Cult biopic — but that title basically screams horror, which would put McAvoy back in the genre after "Split," "It: Chapter Two," and his recent turn in "Speak No Evil."
Wheatley is coming off the somewhat watchable Bob Odenkirk-starrer "Normal" and, before that, the pandemic-era horror flick "In the Earth" — which was, sort of, half-assedly, an attempt to get back to his indie roots. The man needs a win. He's been off for a while now, with "High-Rise," "Free Fire," his Netflix-backed "Rebecca" remake, "In the Earth," and "Meg 2: The Trench" all landing somewhere between forgettable and misbegotten. "Normal," one of those innumerable "Taken" ripoffs, was probably the best of a bad run.
Here's a small scoop for Sunday night. Nothing too exciting, since it concerns the once-promising Ben Wheatley, a filmmaker who broke out with the cult-horror gut-punch of "Kill List" and "A Field in England.”