‘Heart Eyes’ Director Josh Ruben to Helm ‘Wilderness Reform’ Horror Novel Adaptation

After kicking off the year with Heart Eyes, director Josh Ruben has found his next project.

Deadline reports that Ruben is attached to helm an adaptation of Matt Query and Harrison Query‘s horror novel Wilderness Reform for Paramount.

The plot centers on a wilderness camp for troubled teens that is plagued by mysterious events and disappearances, taking survival and discipline to a frightening extreme.

Ruben is overseeing a script draft by Steve Desmond & Michael Sherman (Knock at the Cabin).

Pet Sematary: Bloodlines writer-director Lindsey Beer will produce through her production company Lab Brew, which has a first-look deal with the studio, alongside Scott Glassgold through his 12:01 Films.

Published last year via Atria/Emily Bestler Books, the Wilderness Reform novel synopsis provides more insight into what we can expect from the feature:

“13-year-old Ben is sent to an isolated reform program for troubled teens by a juvenile court judge. But when he arrives at the camp, located on the edge of the vast wilderness of northwestern Montana, he immediately recognizes that there is something weird about the counselors. They’re too friendly and upbeat… yet Ben can tell there’s an undercurrent of menace.

“As he gets to know the boys in his cabin, he soon discovers that they each have far more going for them than whatever crime landed them there. And each has a different critical skill, one that could help them unearth what is really going on in this place—and how to make it out alive. They are inching ever closer to the truth, but the hidden evil beneath the camp’s surface will make itself known in order to deter them.”

Prior to Heart Eyes, Ruben helmed 2021’s Werewolves Within and 2020’s Scare Me, also writing and starring in the latter.