What happens when history’s most dangerous killers are locked inside the same building? That’s the terrifying question at the heart of Specimen, a newly announced horror thriller that has officially found its director.
John Herzfeld (15 Minutes, Escape Plan: The Extractors) has signed on to helm the film, taking on a screenplay by producer-financier Chase Vergari, which he will rewrite before production begins. The project comes from producer-financiers Vergari and Eric Handler, whose recent credits include the upcoming Walton Goggins action film Mister and the Samuel L. Jackson filmed The Beast. Production companies attached are Second Act Pictures and Script 2 Screen Capital.
The setup is lean and nasty: an elite team is hired to deliver the world’s worst serial killers to a secret research facility run by a visionary neuroscientist obsessed with curing evil. His groundbreaking experiment succeeds, and that success is the problem. What it unleashes is something far more dangerous than any of the killers already locked inside.
The premise was enough to pull Herzfeld in immediately. “What drew me to Specimen was the theme: can evil be cured, and if so, at what cost?” he said. “The story follows a charismatic visionary who risks becoming the very thing he set out to destroy. That struggle between good and evil is as relevant now as it has ever been.”
Vergari has made clear the film is designed to go further than a single story. “I wrote Specimen as the first chapter of a much larger world,” he said. “I wanted to build something that works as a relentless standalone horror-thriller but opens into a universe we can keep exploring.”
Discussions with talent are currently underway. No cast or release date has been announced yet.
