‘Lice’ – Justin Long Starring in “Gruesome Throwback” About a Parasitic Head Lice Invasion

We were all terrified of head lice as kids and the horror-comedy Lice is about to make us itchy all over again. Variety reports that Justin Long, Emile Hirsch, and Kevin Connolly will star in the “gruesome throwback,” being produced by Connolly’s own ActionPark Productions.

Director Jonathan Bensimon’s film is set to be a throwback to high school classics from the 1980s, and it’s being described as “The Breakfast Club meets Lord of the Flies.”

The upcoming film “follows a deadly outbreak of the parasite at a Long Island high school in the 1980s. When the school goes under military lockdown, the itch-crazed students turn on each other in a desperate struggle to survive.”

Variety details, “Hirsch stars as burned-out science teacher Mr. Shanker, who finds new purpose as he investigates the bloodthirsty mites, Long as Principal Van, a man who is out of his depth and soon out of his mind, and Connolly as the tenacious Detective Sikorski, the desperate cop on the outside racing against time to contain the outbreak before it consumes the entire town.”

“I wanted to make the kind of movies that I loved as a kid,” said Connolly. “I’m a horror fan and I wanted to make something for guys like me — fun, weird, scary, and completely unpredictable. It made perfect sense to launch our feature division with a project this bold and ambitious. Jonathan Bensimon is that rare combination of creative mind and brilliant technician. And when you get two incredible actors who can blend comedy and drama the way Emile and Justin can, you’ve really got something special on your hands.”

Anthony Musella and Shaun Harris wrote the screenplay.