Horror fans, brace yourselves: David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil) is set to terrorize audiences in the upcoming meta-horror thriller Kill Screen, starring alongside Ella Balinska (Resident Evil), Deadline reports.

Originally announced as The Horror Game, the film is directed by Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) and penned by Gus Krieger (The Killing Room).

The premise is pure nightmare fuel: Balinska plays a young woman desperate to find her missing sister, dragged along with three friends into a mysterious virtual reality horror game. Each level plunges them into a different horrifying subgenre—slashers, supernatural beasts, zombies, and psychological terror. But the stakes are brutally clear: die in the game, die in real life.

Enter Dastmalchian as the game’s sadistic creator, a villain designed to haunt every waking moment. The friends must outthink and outfight him—or become just another set of corpses in his twisted playground.

Currently in pre-production, Kill Screen is produced by Tyler Condon of CinemaWays and Matthew Shreder (The Little Hours) of Concourse Media.

“Kill Screen is built for a generation raised on horror and interactive storytelling,” Condon said. “It’s terrifying, smart, and wildly entertaining—a movie that celebrates the genre while reinventing it. Greg’s vision and Gus’s script create a world fans will want to explore again and again.”

Shreder added, “Genre-savvy, high-concept horror is booming right now. Kill Screen taps into that demand, paying homage to every horror subgenre ever imagined while delivering something completely new.”

Dastmalchian is having a busy year in terror: he’s also appeared in Dexter: Resurrection, Murderbot, Rosario, and The Creep Tapes, with Dust Bunny in theaters this weekend and The Boulet Brothers’ Holiday of Horrors landing on Shudder next Tuesday.

If you’re ready for blood, fear, and a villain who’ll haunt your nightmares, Kill Screen is shaping up to be a meta-horror feast.