Brad Anderson Returns to Horror on 'Seventh Street'

If anyone needs a second chance alongside the Bar None sock puppet dog, it's Hayden Christensen. Maybe he's a good actor, maybe he's middling, maybe he's bad (I forgot to see Jumper, and Virgin Territory still hovers in the middle of my Netflix queue), but he deserves a shot to prove himself one way or another. A good horror movie is as good a shot as any. According to The Hollywood Reporter, that's just what he's got, and will be starring in Brad Anderson's Vanishing on Seventh Street. Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo are in negotiations to join in the spookiness.

Penned by Anderson and Anthony Jaswinsky, Seventh Street takes place in the ghostly shell of a once-thriving city. Living residents inexplicably vanish once they come in contact with its new shadowy residents. Five individuals fight to stay alive, dodge these eerie threats, and grapple with the meaning of existence. Christensen will play a reporter, Newton a desperate nurse, and Leguizamo a subway operator; the other two characters have yet to be cast or named. Filming will kick off mid-October in Detroit. (Cue the stories of socio-economic parellels.)

I haven't gotten to see much of Anderson's work (I'm anxiously waiting for Scott Weinberg to assign The Horror Virgin a viewing of Session 9), but he certainly can deliver the moody, shivery atmosphere. There's a dash of A Long Day's Journey Into Night in the the Seventh Street story description, and I'm fascinated with anything that might dabble into ideas of Purgatory. Blood, guts, and slashers are certainly scary, but staring into the abyss of life, death, and existence? That's the stuff of true horror.