The phrase “suffering for fashion” is about to get a very literal, very gooey upgrade. According to Deadline, Sonja O’Hara (Doomsday) and Sebiye Behtiyar (Preparation for the Next Life) have signed on to headline The Scorpion. This indie horror flick promises to turn the cosmetics industry into a laboratory of psychological and physical nightmares.
Writer-director Zachary Allard makes his feature debut here, trading his executive desk at Exile Entertainment for the director’s chair.
A Makeover from Hell
Meet Kit (Sonja O’Hara), a struggling entrepreneur whose dreams of a clothing line have hit a snag. Short on cash and long on desperation, she accepts a “dream job” at a cutting-edge cosmetics lab. The pitch? They’ve heroically ditched animal testing! The catch? They’ve replaced the bunnies with willing human participants.
As Kit dives into the lab’s bizarre cocktail of perfumes, chemicals, and “invasive procedures,” her luck actually starts to turn around. Unfortunately, so does her anatomy. As her life improves, she begins to notice disturbing changes that a little concealer won’t fix.
Double Trouble
Joining the clinical chaos is Sebiye Behtiyar as Lizzie, a winsome recruit. As the two women bond over their shared career path, they realize they’re also sharing an increasingly grotesque transformation. It’s a “buddy comedy” if the buddies were both slowly turning into something else entirely.
Behind the Curtains
Produced by Raechel Zarzynski, Kathy Sue Holtorf, Garrett Recker, and Greg Elam, the film is set to begin production in LA later this year. Corey Moosa (Margin Call) is on board as executive producer, bringing some serious indie weight to the project.
Body Horror Queen
This isn’t O’Hara’s first rodeo with a scalpel. She’s currently in post-production on another psychological body horror thriller titled Snare, which she co-directed. It seems she’s quickly becoming the go-to lead for movies that make you want to double-check the ingredients on your night cream.
Next time you see a “human-tested” label on your moisturizer, you might want to think twice. The Scorpion is coming to remind us that perfection always comes with a sting.
