With a strongly-reviewed thriller to his name and a Black List screenplay now in his hands, everything’s coming up Adam Blaiklock. As Variety reports, the Australian helmer (first behind Caught Inside) is signing with 20th Century Fox and Ben Stiller‘s Red Hour Films to helm their long-pending thriller, Sunflower.

If the actor’s involvement has you expecting something with comedic undertones, think again; the script, from Misha Green, brings something like Martha Marcy May Marlene to mind first and foremost. In Sunflower, two women have been kidnapped by a professor and are “held hostage in a prison-like farmhouse.” For some reason — at this point, let’s not dwell on the finer details — their state raises the question of physical violence against one another as a means of staying alive.

Blaiklock, being praised for his behind-the-camera work on Caught Inside, feels like a smart “indie” pick for this kind of project — he’s a fresh face, shouldn’t have a huge ego, and is being handed the keys to something much bigger. If there are any questions of concern right now, it’d probably have more to do with the script for Sunflower, which we obviously don’t have in our possession and, thus, can only go off what’s been said here. It’s good, though I wonder if the bleak set-up will segue into true, effective darkness or the kind of “studio darkness” that rolls more eyes than beats hearts. You probably get the picture.

How do you take Sunflower at the outset?