A Bigger Boat hires UK's Shankland to direct Dark Corners

Block and Andy Gould are producing and Tim Williams and Amanda Essick will serve as executive producers. Glen Basner’s FilmNation is handling worldwide sales and principal photography is scheduled to begin in autumn.

Dark Corners centres on a blind college girl tormented by a methodic killer who knows her well and is bent on revenge. The girl capitalises on her perceived weakness and fights back.

Bafta-nominee Shankland’s most recent film The Children (pictured) was produced in association with the BBC and released in the US through Sam Raimi’s Ghosthouse Underground and played in official selection at Sitges in 2009.

E L Katz and Tim Day wrote the script from an idea by Block and Gould. The screenplay was developed internally at GreeneStreet and A Bigger Boat and featured on the 2010 Bloodlist, the genre community’s version of the Blacklist showcasing the year’s best horror and thriller scripts.

“Tom Shankland is the perfect choice for Dark Corners,” Block said. “When you watch The Children, it’s unsettling and creepy while at the same time you find yourself being drawn in deeper and deeper. Likewise with Dark Corners; this is a cat-n-mouse thriller in the spirit of Wait Until Darkand Panic Room that gives you someone to root for, someone to fear and something going bump in the night.”

“Dark Corners will be Hitchcock reimagined for a modern audience who love to be scared in the dark,” Shankland added. “I’ve always loved films where characters have very limited choices and tools to solve problems and survive, and then mining suspense from these claustrophobic situations.”