‘Cobra Kai’ Star Peyton List and Gustaf Skarsgård have finished filming one of the more unsettling psychological thrillers to come through production recently — and the premise alone is enough to make anyone think twice about joining a theater company.
Production has officially wrapped on Exit to the Guillotine, a psychological horror-thriller written and directed by Zachary Cotler, according to Variety. The film stars List, known for Cobra Kai and School Spirits, alongside Skarsgård of Oppenheimer, Vikings, and Westworld.
Table of Contents
What the Film Is About
List plays Burne Peter, an off-Broadway actress who accepts an invitation to join an international theater troupe at a decommissioned prison on the Ukrainian coast. The troupe is led by Dado Levytskyy — a famous but deeply unstable director played by Skarsgård — and is in the process of rehearsing a new translation of an old Polish play.
The problem is that every time the company rehearses, one of the actors disappears.
It’s a premise that sits somewhere between theatrical paranoia and genuine psychological horror — the kind of story where the line between performance and reality becomes impossible to locate, and where the person in charge may be the most dangerous element of all.
The Supporting Cast
The ensemble around the two leads is impressively assembled. Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova of Heated Rivalry appears in the film, alongside Lea Myren of The Ugly Stepsister, Dylan Douglas of Killing Hitler, Marcin Czarnik of Sunset and Son of Saul, Nikki Si’ulepa of The Whole of the Moon, Michael Golab of Splinter Cell: Deathwatch, and Pablo Sandstrom of The Strangers and Day Drinker. The film also introduces Jan Kłapyta.
The Director Behind the Film
Cotler is an independent filmmaker whose work has consistently found unusual angles on literary and political subjects. His debut feature Maya Dardel — about a writer who announces her intention to die and invites young male writers to compete for control of her estate — won Best Screenplay at the Prague Independent Film Festival in 2017. His subsequent work includes When I’m a Moth, a 2019 unconventional portrait of Hillary Rodham set in 1969 Alaska, and The Wall of Mexico, also from 2019, which tackled immigration and class through the story of a wealthy Mexican-American family fortifying their property.
Exit to the Guillotine is produced by Magdalena Zyzak, Bonnie Timmermann, Marius Vilunas, Jean Pierre Magro, and J. Todd Harris, with List, Skarsgård, Thomas Pettinelli, and Mark Jazwin serving as executive producers. The film is produced under Cotler’s independent Winter Film Company.
A release date has not yet been announced.
Discover more from A2Z Filming Location
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.