In absolute nightmare news today, Variety have revealed that Charades and WTFilms have teamed up on Vermin, an upcoming French horror that stars...brace yourself...REAL spiders. That's right folks, no CGI creepy crawlies here, these eight-legged freaks are as real as the ones under your bed.
Vermin is the feature debut of Sébastien Vaniček, best known for his shorts Croc and the award-winning Mayday. Florent Bernard co-wrote the script.
According to Variety, Vermin's setting and plot reads as follows:
An underprivileged suburb [that] has been thrown into chaos following an invasion of venomous spiders. Ordered to be placed in quarantine, the project sees inhabitants living on lockdown alongside terrifying spiders that are becoming bigger and bigger. The story revolves around Kaleb, who’s about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over a matter of inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Passionate about exotic animals, he comes home one day with a venomous spider and accidentally let it slip away.
Vermin stars a cast of local up-and-coming actors including Théo Christine (How I Became A Super Hero), Finnegan Oldfield (Final Cut), Sofia Lesaffre (Les Misérables) and Jérôme Niel (Smoking Causes Coughing).
A film featuring real spiders will be many people's ultimate horror movie, but Vaniček assures us that there's more to Vermin than just your average creature feature, stating that it's a 'very personal film which depicts the French suburbs [he knows], far from the eeriness of the auteur films or the caricature of the comedies...It’s a genre film that shakes you to your core, moves you, makes you shiver, because it seems to me that through emotions you end up concerned and involved.'
The film is currently in shooting in Paris, with a March 3 end date. After that, it will distributed in France by Tandem, with France Télévisions having pre-bought the movie and Netflix acquiring the pay TV window in France. Details for a release outside of France have yet to be revealed, so stay put for more updates on an international spider invasion.
