Come With Me (1966) - King Hu Film News

Vertical has acquired North American rights to Come With Me, a psychological thriller starring Theo Rossi (Sons of Anarchy) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Sons of Anarchy), with the distributor planning a theatrical and digital release later this year. The deal was finalized ahead of the film’s first trailer debut, which Vertical released exclusively through Hollywood Buzz News on Thursday morning.

The project, directed by first-time feature helmer Marcus Dunstan - best known for writing the Saw franchise installments VI and 3D - marks a tonal shift for the genre veteran into more intimate, character-driven horror. Rossi plays a grief-stricken husband who, after the sudden death of his wife, begins receiving a series of encrypted messages from her phone. The messages lure him into a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious stranger, played by Perlman, who seems to know more about the man’s loss than he should. As the protagonist digs deeper, he uncovers a web of deceit that blurs the line between reality and paranoia, forcing him to question his own sanity.

Dunstan, who co-wrote the script with Patrick Melton, said the film was designed as a two-hander, with the majority of the tension built through long, unbroken takes and minimalist production design. “The whole point was to strip away the noise - no jump scares, no gore, just two actors and a ticking clock,” Dunstan said in a statement accompanying the trailer release. “Theo and Ron brought a level of rawness that elevated every scene.”

The trailer, which runs just under two minutes, opens with Rossi’s character, Jack, staring at a cracked smartphone screen in a dimly lit apartment. Over a distorted voice recording, numbers flash across the frame, and brief cuts reveal Perlman’s character, calling himself “Mr. Vale,” watching Jack from across a rain-soaked street. The footage leans heavily on sound design - a low drone, distorted whispers, and a heartbeat pulse - before cutting to a confrontation in a parking garage where Vale delivers the film’s title line: “Come with me, or stay and rot.” The teaser ends with Jack running through a hospital corridor, chasing a figure that may or may not be his wife.

Vertical, which has built a reputation for acquiring mid-budget genre films with name talent, plans a multi-platform rollout. The company’s recent slate includes the horror thriller The Retaliators and the action pic One Shot, and executives see Come With Me as a fit for their audience of streaming-first viewers who also appreciate theatrical options. “This is exactly the kind of film that thrives in both a dark theater and a late-night VOD rent,” said Vertical’s head of acquisitions, Peter Jarrett, in the release. “Theo and Ron are both proven draws, and Marcus has delivered a tight, tense piece of work that respects the audience’s intelligence.”

Rossi, who has pivoted increasingly to genre work after his breakout as Juice Ortiz on Sons of Anarchy, said the role required a different kind of preparation than his usual characters. “Jack isn’t a hero or a villain - he’s a man in freefall, and I wanted to play that collapse honestly,” Rossi said in the same statement. “Marcus let me improvise some of the more unhinged moments, but the core was always about the grief, not the mystery.” Perlman, meanwhile, described his character as “a chess player who enjoys watching his opponent sweat,” adding that the film’s script was “the first in years that made me put it down and call my agent immediately.”

Dunstan and Melton first conceived the story in 2019, initially as a contained thriller set in a single apartment. The script went through several revisions before production began in early 2025 in Atlanta, where the crew shot over 24 days. Cinematographer Polly Morgan (A Quiet Place Part II) shot the film on 35mm to give it a grainy, oppressive texture, and the score comes from composer Nathan Barr, who previously worked with Dunstan on The Collector.

The acquisition news follows a busy festival season for the film, which screened under the title Signal Lost at a regional genre festival in Austin last fall, where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature. Vertical negotiated the deal after that screening, with the studio opting to re-title the movie for wider commercial appeal. The release date is set for October 23, positioning it squarely in the Halloween corridor for maximal streaming traffic.

For Vertical, the pickup represents another step in its aggressive push into psychological thrillers, a subgenre that has proven reliable for VOD returns. The company previously released the Rebecca Hall-led The Night House and the Nicolas Cage vehicle Pig, both of which found strong word-of-mouth after modest theatrical bows. Come With Me will receive a limited theatrical release - roughly 150 screens - before hitting major digital platforms two weeks later, followed by a Blu-ray edition in December.

With the trailer now out, early fan reaction on social media has focused on the film’s visual style and the chemistry between the two leads, with several commenters drawing comparisons to The Game and Prisoners. Whether the film lives up to those lofty references remains to be seen, but the combination of a seasoned writer-director, two committed actors, and a distributor with a proven track record suggests Come With Me could be one of the sleeper hits of the fall season.

Source: Hollywood Reporter