Guy Pearce is leading horror movie The Seventh Day for director Justin P. Lange and producers Cinestate and Fangoria.

Pitched as “Training Day meets The Exorcist“, the movie follows a renowned exorcist who teams up with a rookie priest for his first day of training. As they plunge deeper into hell on earth, the lines between good and evil blur and their demons emerge.

Voltage Pictures is handling international sales and is shopping the movie at AFM this week.

Justin P. Lange will direct his own script, his credits include 2018 Tribeca premiere The Dark, which was nominated for a Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best First Feature in 2019.

“Guy Pearce is an extraordinary talent,” said Lange. “He’s a rare combination of bona fide movie star and consummate artist. I can’t wait for audiences to see what he has in store for them with this role.” From L.A. Confidential to The Rover to Memento in between, Pearce has indeed walked the rare line between charismatic star power and genuine, tension-filled unpredictability. While his exact role in The Seventh Day is being kept under wraps for now, the film sounds like it’ll be a bit of a two-hander following a veteran exorcist walking a rookie priest through his first day.

“This is a story about the rising spread of a pervasive evil,” continued Lange. “We live in an increasingly dark world, one where it’s difficult to know who to trust, or what to believe. It’s a scary time, and scary times call for scary movies.” Lange is really onto something — horror is having a bit of “a moment” these days, and it’s likely in part because of the reactions to the fresh horrors awaiting us all the moment we open our eyes.