Producer Edward Pressman and director Mary Harron are teaming up for the first time since American Psycho on the Gothic horror The Moth Diaries.

Rising British star Lily Cole and Scott Speedman will star.

A late summer shoot in Montreal has been lined up for the story based on Rachel Klein’s cult novel about an elite New England boarding school where a mysterious young girl arrives amid a spate of campus
deaths.

Cole stars in Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus, which is attracting intense interest from North American buyers ahead of next week’s world premiere here. She also stars in Sally Potter’s Rage and Marilyn Manson’s upcoming Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll.

Speedman stars in the current US release of Adoration, which premiered here in Cannes last year, and in The Moth Diaries he will play a literature teacher who leads a class on Gothic fiction.

Harron adapted the screenplay, which Pressman called “very smart, very visual, very feminine yet very powerful.” Pressman is producing through his Pressman Films and his credits include Wall Street, Bad
Lieutenant, and Werner Herzog’s upcoming Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans.

“This is a chillingly atmospheric horror story with real emotional depth,” Harron said. “I’ve tried to stay true to Rachel Klein’s novel in the way it re-works and updates the Gothic tradition and the whole notion of girl-on-girl Vampires.  Lily Cole is a very talented actress and… I’ve long been a fan of Scott Speedman.”

Harron and Speedman were represented in the deal by Endeavor and D/F Management and Cole is represented by Endeavor. Pressman’s associate Jon Katz negotiated the deals.

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