Upstart production entity Tango Pictures has acquired the film rights to the Ben H. Winters’ bestselling horror novel BEDBUGS. Ti West (THE INNKEEPERS, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) has been tapped to write the screenplay. Tango's Christina Lurie, Steven Shainberg, and Andrew Lazar will produce alongside Quirk Books, the book's publisher.
Winters' novel, which hit shelves last fall, goes like this:
Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up.
Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs . . . or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.
As a New Yorker, this one really hits close to home. Bedbugs really are sent from hell, so honestly, they're the perfect villain in any urban landscape.
It remains to be seen if West will take up directing duties on BEDBUGS; at the moment he's working on THE SIDE EFFECT, which is set to star Liv Tyler.
Liv Tyler
I don't know