Not a whole lot of people ended up seeing last year’s minimalist horrorshow The Eyes of My Mother, but most of those who did were suitably impressed. Director Nicolas Pesce’s stripped-down approach to small-town sadism earned the respect of the juries at Sundance and the same set of horror purists who made The Witch an out-of-nowhere hit. An emerging artist with a clearly defined sense of style, Pesce stuck out as a talent to watch, and those who had kept tabs on the director will be pleased to see he’s landed his next gig. And you may already be familiar with his next project, too.

Deadline had the exclusive last night that production outfit Ghost House Pictures has tapped Pesce to get behind the camera for an upcoming reboot of J-horror staple The Grudge. Those readers with memories stretching back over a decade will remember that there’s already an American remake of the 2002 Japanese film, a 2004 effort from original director Takashi Shimizu that recycled many of the shots, so it’s safe to assume Pesce will take the material in something of a new direction. He’ll shoot from a script written by Jeff Buhler, the scribe responsible for the magnificently titled (and really just fine) Midnight Meat Train.

Pesce’s currently finishing work on another original feature, the psycho-thriller Piercing with Mia Wasikowska, but it looks like the neo-Grudge will be the next item on his docket. The financiers are clearly banking that Pesce can pull off the same magic trick as Shimizu and conjure a hundred-million-plus payday from a modest budget — Pesce’s proven himself as a filmmaker, but not as a reliable box-office quantity, so only time will tell.

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