Ben Stiller is reuniting with his Reality Bites scripter Helen Childress on a new project, but don’t expect it to be in the same vein as the 1994 Gen-X comedy. Titled The Mountain, their new collaboration will be a period horror story based on the 1917 Edith Wharton novel Summer.
Deadline described the film’s plot as a “sophisticated horror premise in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby,” and synopsized the story as such –
Set in the early 1900s, The Mountain revolves around a young woman who struggles to confront her destiny after stumbling upon a mysterious object that forces her to examine the secrets of her past.
How that ties into Wharton’s novel about the sexual awakening of a young New England woman who falls in love with and gets pregnant by a man who is engaged to another wonan is anyone’s guess at this point.
I’m sure there are some raised eyebrows over Stiller directing the project. After all with films like Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, Zoolander and Tropic Thunder on his resume, this film doesn’t sound as if it is in his wheelhouse. But then again, no one really believed that a Kevin Smith-directed horror film sounded like a good idea either, but his Red State turned out to be a strong change of pace for the comedy writer/director.
It is unclear as to when this will head into production. Stiller is currently shooting the Akiva Schiffer comedy Neighborhood Watch after which he will move on to Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young. He also has a role in the big screen adaption of the British television series Rentaghost and directing and starring duties in a remake of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty on his schedule.
